The truth shall set you free
Why did Jeremiah Wright do it? Dana Milbank at the Washington Post blog section describes Wright's recent speech at the National Press Club.
Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.
In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.
Maybe James Lewis is onto something when he argues that the "moment of truth for the Left has arrived" because the ideology espoused by Jeremiah Wright and his enthusiastic audience is more a product of the Left's idea mill than anything else. You'll find equivalent versions of the Wright ideology for Latinos, Indians, gays, lesbians and environmentalists. Wright is part of a product line. A small part.
And that's why Obama's associations with people like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, in conjunction with Jeremiah Wright are more significant than they appear at first glance. They imply a loyalty to the parent brand, the Left, more than to its special product line for black people.
I doubt whether the Left will ever meet it's moment of truth. They exist in entirely parallel universes.
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posted by wretchardthecat at 4/28/2008 04:14:00 PM
164 Comments:
I'm amazed sometimes at the sheer stupidity of the left. Pastor Wright just nuked Obama. Exactly what benefit did anybody on the left gain by allowing Wright in front of cameras? Soooooo stupid.
Well Barack is a smart guy and he has a good team. If Hillary can recover from "sniper fire" and other lies, I suppose Obama can beat this rap too. Problem is that we're only in the Demo primary, which caters to the left. How can anyone dismiss this stuff when we move to the general election?
I guess I really don't understand the left.
Andrew Sullivan thinks Wright's words only prove how noble Obama is.
Wright is not Obama and Obama is not Wright. But Obama's decency has prevented him thus far from the kind of thing that the Clintons would do without even thinking about it. Wright has now removed any guilt or conflict Obama might feel about denouncing him and his approach to race and politics.
In an earlier post I argued that belief is to reason as 100 is to 1. Political discourse is mostly about shaping attitudes, not making rational arguments. In reality, Wright's comments will hurt Obama much less than people think. Dang, there's that word again.
David Gergen thinks the whole Wright issue is a sideshow and that the media should "move on". I think Gergen is correct. Jeremiah Wright is a sideshow. As I argued in the post above, Wright is simply the local franchise of a line of hatred the Left has been purveying for decades. Dohrn and Ayers have got a franchise to do a version tailored for another demographic.
The MSM, to some extent, is part of the very problem that Wright represents. So Gergen is correct. Time for the MSM to move on and turn the limelight on itself. Oops, I forgot. That's a "sideshow" also.
No Wretchard, Wright's comments will HURT Obama (and Blacks in general) much MORE than people think.
Milbank understood that.
Wright just stood there and danced around with hate. It's all there: hate for Jews. Hate for whites. Hate hate hate. Farrakhan. Demands for an endless series of apologies and reparations from whites to blacks.
Hate.
Andrew Sullivan will never change. But miracle of miracles, the average White guy is now well aware that Obama endorses this hate, hates hates hates whites (why else would he stick with this clown for 20 years) and that the average black guy is just like Wright. A bigoted racist the mirror image of the Klan.
We won't get less tribalism. Just more. Wright's hatred and tribalism are just going to provoke counter-hatred and counter-tribalism. We already see leading indicators -- anti Affirmative Action, Dave Chappelle (his mostly white audience laughed AT not with his dumb black characters), "Leon" of beer commercials, and so on.
Just as most Americans have decided that Muslims are our enemies, not worth much of anything other than wiping out if/when they hit US cities, so too are Blacks the enemy of Whites, and anti-American to boot. They won't be joining the Klan, but will vote bloc and tribally.
I think that Wright revealed why he did it in the speech when he said that the attacks on his words were not about him or about Obama but were attacks on the institution of black churches itself.
This reveals two things. One is Wright’s boundless egotism. HE is Black Religion. The other is a very disturbing tendency for blacks to accept the concept of “their” way of doing things. We saw this in the O.J. Simpson case, in which many if not most blacks chose to ignore the evidence on the basis that THEY wanted it that way. The case met their standards, and any other one be damned.
They do indeed live in a parallel universe – but it interfaces with the real one, and that is where some real problems occur.
Because when Their Way falls on its face guess who gets to bail their sorry asses out?
SCDS--Sudden Candidate Death Syndrome
I just *know* that someone, reacting to our reactions, will bring Jerry Falwell into the mix.
These left factions seem to be imploding just like the newspapers are.
It's about time. I've always thought it was tragic the way my parents' generation lived their entire lives believing so much of this junk. Our kids deserve better.
I feel sorry for Obama, even though he's such a hopeless sap. People he relied on for years cashed him in the first chance they got, in exchange for a moment in front of the cameras, and presumably a shot at a book deal.
On the other hand, Obama clearly used every one of these people on his way up. It's only fair that he now gets used in his turn on his way own.
Mark: I just *know* that someone, reacting to our reactions, will bring Jerry Falwell into the mix.
At the same time Wright was giving his interview, John Hagee, the Pastor with whom McCain associates with (and is proud to have received an endorsement from after shopping around for one) says through his public relations firm that he would like to revise and extend his earlier remarks that New Orleans was destroyed by God because they were planning an extra-sexy Gay Pride event. I was tempted to go ask John McCain if he thought God targeted New Orleans for tolerating gays and lesbians, but then I thought, no, those are the views of John Hagee not John McCain. I remembered that John Hagee, like Reverend Wright, is not running for President. So I should just focus on what John McCain says, not the views of his associates and endorsers. This principle would hold true even if Pastor John Hagee hired the Aryan Nations to provide security at his events.
I have to agree with Wretchard here. I believe the blindly smitten would stay loyal to Obama even if he were convicted of murder before our very eyes. And I believe those who were bothered by Wright before... even if unsure... are just more sure they were right to be bothered.
But I don't think the mix will change much.
Wright's not going away. He's on the circuit to promote an upcoming book, so he's going to find a way to demand more and more face time - without it hurting Obama.
I'm wondering if Wright is set to become a future tool for Obama to formally "eject" in the near future (as a public thing anyway). Who knows, it could already arranged as a campaign strategy as Act II.
But something is afoot here. Because neither Wright or Obama are this stupid.
well, looks like multiculturalism has succeeded in reviving race hatred. way to go, professor geniuses.
I used to think if gas was over three dollars a gallon the Democrats would win in a landslide. Now I think it might have to be over four. Of course, it probably will be over four.
Even "the cleaned up versions" of JW on the evening news came across harsh.
A few weeks back I heard Barak say that the media "picked a thirty second sound bite out of thirty years of sermons" as a defense of his pastor. Since the guy was still alive and his tongue hadn't fallen out I thought that was a mistake. In thirty minutes in front of the press JW provided enough "explosives" to sink a battleship -- if Barak were a Republican he'd be gone.
But the MSM is on his side. They'll keep it below the surface. A depth charge, perhaps.
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There was serious discussion on CNBC today as to whether Jeremiah Wright was taking money from the Clinton campaign. If so, he's worth whatever they were paying him.
Here's another data point: Obama won't criticize Jeremiah Wright, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, Hamas or Ahmadinijad, but he routinely criticizes America's allies like the governments of Iraq and Pakistan. Who does that remind you of? Barack Obama may well be the second coming of Jimmy Carter, with the same disasterous results we got from the original.
C-SPAN has the National Press Club video online. I would post a link, but they have no permalinks.
Teresita,
This is virulent hatred, that is baldfaced and venomous. No one sane can sit in a pew listening to this verbal sewage more than ten minutes without becoming nauseous. Obama's 20 year friendship with this black Nazi, this racist Marxist freak, is a permanent record of his lack of judgment. No sane American can stomach this poison. None should.
And before you go off on Hagee, McCain's never attended his services once. I've seen his services about a dozen times and have never gotten a hint of any anti-Catholicism and his rebuttals of the same are leagues away from Wrights enthusiastic hate mongering and Marxist freakshow dribble. No comparison, and only the desperately unhinged can make one.
Read an article that explains how the psychological theory of “cross-race recognition deficit” may be exacerbating the indelible linkage of Jeremiah Wright’s views to Barack Obama…here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Peter: I thought of much the same point as yours last week, when I turned past an Air America station to hear them raving about “Bush going all around the world, gathering people up, tossing them in jail for terrorism and interrogating them.”
I wanted to call in and say “Look, the fact is that as President you have to be able to pick up a phone and give the order that will vaporize a city, or a dozen cities, or a dozen dozen cities, right down to the bedrock, and kill hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of people. And if you are all torn up inside over locking up a few hundred terrorist suspects, you ain’t gonna make it in the real world, pal.”
Wright just won't go away, will he? Obama must be sweating bullets at this point. Hillary is gaining in the polls, and looks to win many or most of the remaining primaries.
Obama has been wounded by this episode, perhaps fatally.
However, unlike your first commenter, "dla", I don't think Obama can overcome this. Everyone expects politicians to lie; the Clintons were just a bit more brazen.
But Wright, Ayers, and all the rest that's coming out about Obama's associations go to the heart of what Americans think about themselves. They may tolerate a philanderer and/or liar if he gets the economy going and keeps the peace.
But Obama worries middle class America for reasons that go deeper. We know Wright's a kook (at best), and now people realize that Obama is not who he said he was. As such, they don't even know who he is, and that may prove his undoing.
Here's why I think Jeremiah Wright did it.
The important thing to remember is that as far as the Left is concerned, Barack Obama is already the President of the United States. He's already been selected by the People. Any sequence of events which frustrates this result will be a lynching. He'll be Patrice Lumumba, Allende and Che Guevara all rolled into one.
So the Left has already won whatever happens to Obama. But in the matter of winning, it's important how he wins. The preferred mode of Leftist victory is through intimidation. Winning an ordinary electoral victory is ho-hum. Winning one with the smell of gunpowder in the air is a revolution.
Now after Obama built up a big delegate lead on Hillary, the Democratic Party was essentially committed to carrying Obama whether or not Hillary found some way to overtake the lead. Remember, Obama once in the lead, is always in the lead. Otherwise it's a lynching. I think Wright is essentially running up the Jolly Roger knowing full well that the Democratic Party will have sail under those colors or lose the black vote. He's going to force the Democrats to take Obama on his terms. This is the revolutionary act. Wright believes he has an historic opportunity and he's going to take it.
Personally, I think the Democratic Party will be dragged kicking and screaming into doing exactly as Wright wants. They can't lose the black vote. They'd rather lose in 2008 than smash the Rainbow coalition they've built over the years.
So my prediction is that Wright has gamed it this way. He's making a play for the soul of the Democratic Party. He's prepared to lose 2008, knowing that even if Obama loses the general election, Obama in the leftist hagiography, will be even greater than if he had won.
In a very subtle way, it's a putsch.
Teresita you miss the point.
Hagee does not claim nor has any Protestant Congregation claimed to speak for all White Protestants. In fact, many have condemned him.
Wright claims to speak for all Blacks. And no Black minister, activist, or politician has said otherwise. Instead they have praised him and praised his "dissent."
Conclusion: Blacks really believe that the Government created the AIDS virus to kill Blacks, that America deserved 9/11, that Black Brains and White Brains are different, that America sold bioweapons to Saddam, and that Whites owe Blacks an endless series of apologies and money.
And that Black clergy and pols and activists are afraid to speak out against their flocks own hatred, bigotry, and stupidity, the way White pols would not do so against the Klan in the 1900's-1940's (in the second wave of the Klan).
What are the political repercussions of this?
1. Obama supporters will stay the same, but they will not grow. Late deciders, leaning only, "Obama-cans" will all go for someone else. Hillary or McCain or both.
2. We are witnessing the "White Flight" from the Democratic Party. The more Obama, prominent Black Dems and preachers and so on defend Wright, the more the Dem Party becomes "100% Black." "It's a Black Thing" may be a "cool" message that radiates hipness but repels the white voter who doesn't live in the Getty Mansion.
3. The internal contradictions of the Democratic Party are tearing itself out faster than that of the Republican Party. Democrats claim to be for the little man but want stuff that wealthy white bored celebrities and billionaires want: two squares in the bathroom to save the polar bear, and demand endless obeisance to Black charlatans like Wright in the name of a "Klan-alike" Black Community.
Selling racial hatred of the majority to the majority population is not a winning strategy nationally. We might just be looking at the death of the Democratic Party as a national (as opposed to regional) institution.
Every community has it's haters. Whites long ago denounced and marginalized kooks and nuts like Duke, Hagee, Paul, etc. Wright shows that hasn't and won't (any century soon) with Blacks and thus a realignment is coming.
Promoting tribalism when you're not the majority is to me, ten kinds of stupid. But then I'm not a scholar like Wright.
Sounds like Moses leading the Israelites back to Egypt, to me.
This seems contrived. Too cute.
Obama has hit a fatal rough spot. He can't lose to Hillary, she is too burdened herself with contradictions and lies. He can and will lose to McCain however.
Unless he redefines himself.
It's still early. People won't start paying attention until september or so. He has time.
So he dumps his radical black theology past. He takes advantage of the situation to dump the radical left of the Democratic party.
Etc. Kaus' pivot.
A Sister Souljah moment.
We'll see if he has the chops to pull it off. He has proven to be one of the slipperiest operators we've seen for a while.
Wright has provided ripe fruit for the picking. Too ripe, too contrived.
Derek
Eddar: I've seen his services about a dozen times and have never gotten a hint of any anti-Catholicism
This is what Obama claims about Rev. Wright, that he attended his services intermittently and never gotten a hint of anything that the infamouse YouTube sound bites are showing. Critics are trying to say Obama was basically brainwashed. He already addressed all this in his Philadelphia speech, but I guess the cable news networks are hungry for Gotcha. It must be on account of the remaining primaries being so few and far apart. When Obama wins Indiana and North Carolina this whole news cycle gets flushed.
Wretchard said...
" He's going to force the Democrats to take Obama on his terms. This is the revolutionary act. Wright believes he has an historic opportunity and he's going to take it."
---
I think the good rev might describe it as TRANSforMAtional!
(repeat 6 times, or as needed)
The Ahmadis' Chickens Coming Home to Roost? [Andy McCarthy]
That might be the Wright analysis, but I think it's the wrong analysis.
The AP reports that Indonesian Muslims, screaming "Burn, burn" and "Kill, kill," sought to achieve internal betterment by torching and stoning a mosque belonging to the Ahmadi Muslim sect. The AP explains that the Ahmadi are deemed heretics because they don't accept Mohammed as the final prophet.
Robert Spencer further notes that they are also considered heretical because "they do not embrace violent ji—[LANGUAGE OFFENSIVE TO MODERATES DELETED]"
(and when is Bob going to change the name of his site, currently known as Ji—, y'know, Watch?).
It's simple. Wright likes the sound of his own voice, and he's nuts. That's what Occam told me.
Teresita,
Reverend Hagee may have a few strange ideas, but he is not a traitor to America - he has not called for God to damn America.
Reverend Hagee may have confused some non-evil sins as evil, but he has not confused good as evil.
The former may be the mark of a confused man; the latter is the mark of a tyrant or a tyrant's ally.
horsepuckey.
Neo-neocon tries to figure out why Wright gave the speech he did. And I found this in the comments:
After reviewing the news of Wright’s orations this morning, it came to me. Rev. Jeremiah Wright has seen his opportunity. He knows that if Obama is neither nominated nor elected as our next President, he will have this generation’s next great grievance to leverage. “Nobody has to even ask why Barack failed. You know the answer.”
He’s establishing his base, Jesse and Al are looking old and tired, and he’s getting in position to be the first Big Man of 21st century African America. Every word he speaks helps make this injustice a self-fulfilling prohecy.
Look for some action from Jesse and Al. Soon. They know what this is all about.
Teresita:
Obama sat for 20 years and drank the poison of an anti-American frothing racist. I watched approximately 4 hrs of tape in the 90's. There is no comparison and insisting there is shows a profound inability to reason or recognize fact.
Derek,
Wretchard had it right. If the Dem party weren't tied down with the huge baggage of the SDS-hangover seditionists, then this would be a play, as you suggest, for pushing them off into the fringe permanently.
But the thing is, they don't really see it that way. There's a lack of perceptions of reality going on out there in leftyville that is based on irrational hatreds of America and American qualities. My generation was indoctrinated by them in public schools in it just as the unrepentant hippies started to sieze the schools, seminaries, and colleges - there's a determined quasi-religious orthodoxy that can never be challenged and that blinds them. They minimize and disparage the people they hate ("flyover country", people of faith, rural values) and the result is a minstel-show-quality pastiche of predjudice and lies.
They really really do believe that people in the country are inbred retards. They really do believe the laughable and repulsive knee-jerk caricatures of everyone not-them. They really do - because it means they they, the annointed superior ones, are destined to rule or ride over the plebian "country folk".
It ties into their Marxist teachings that they take every effort to turn into law and custom. Every socialist is at heart an aristocrat. Those against them are by definition either evil or stupid and must be killed or enslaved/ruled - for their own good, of course.
Some of them are able to see that this kind of thing is not just enraging, but incendiary. But they, so out of touch with real America, won't credit what the reaction truly will be. They simply can't see how fast that there fuse is a burnin'.
Most of us who do attend church know that the concept of a "black" or "white" or "asian" church in America is not a church & isn't Christian. And it isn't American.
Segregation is righly seen as evil and so a "black Christian church" is just inconceivable to most of us "simple" folk. We don't go to "white" churches, and we know that implying that blacks can only go to "black" segregated churches is just wrong. And Wright's "church" is as much a church as I am a Higgs Boson.
They're making a miscalculation, but I think the reaction isn't going to be reflexive in nature in nurturing racism. I think that it's going to be more visceral and more political. We know that Wright is a loon, a Marxist, and a frothing-at-the-mouth racist. Our friends are all colors and we won't abide by racists of any stripe.
What this is going to be is a public renunciation of the hard Left (not Blacks), most probably by reactive civil unrest. Obama can't understand that American sensibilities cannot stomach the tripe his friends put out. He doesn't understand that the 60's ended without mass prosecutions for treason because of politeness and expediency, not because the hippies won. And he and the DNC seem to not understand that Socialism/Marxism is not just bad politics, but is simply incompatible with America under the Constitution. Us "simple folk" do understand it, and a lot of us are wincing because we know what is coming down the pike - finishing the job we left undone in the 60's.
It has been forty years coming. I am afraid that what is going to happen might trigger a restorationist spirit during the conflict and that always costs more in violence than is expected. But if non-Americans like the ex-Marine Wright keep throwing light matches like this speech around, something is going to burn and my guess it's going to smell like burning beard hair and patchouli.
Storm-rider:Reverend Hagee may have a few strange ideas, but he is not a traitor to America - he has not called for God to damn America.
He said "God Damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." That's his right. He's not a traitor for exercising free speech. Traitor is a word that gets tossed around too much. It means giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Rev. Wright says the enemy is our own government when it comes to how his community perceives the way they are treated. I am not in that community so I don't know squat about it. Reverend Hagee says the faith of my Father is a "godless theology" but he can do that too. He even says those who do not give aid and comfort to Israel will be cursed by God, which is in the same ballpark with what Rev. Wright said. I don't care about any of this stuff, but I do want to cut the crap and make sure the truth is not shrouded in the fog of heated rhetoric.
Teresita, you may see it that way. The rest of the "typical white people" see it as both treason and hatred of whites. And that moreover, these beliefs are held by nearly all Blacks (hence the fear of saying anything to oppose them by Black leaders).
That is a recipe for White-bloc voting and will destroy not just Obama's hopes in the General in a landslide wipeout, but the Dem Party as a whole (tied to anti-white racism). It's stupid politics.
Wright has a book out. His appearances were maximized to hype himself and the book. Doubtless it contains more stuff like that, that Obama heard and agreed with.
Wright outright said, his interests are not Obama's. I agree with neo-neocon. Wright's play is to replace Rev. Al as the Black Leader.
Honor. Thieves. All that.
I also want to say I agree with Wretchard's assessment of Wright/the Left and the "putsch" dragging the Dems into the hard left and "Black" territory. Running up the Jolly Roger.
BUT ...
That also means that Dems will be "Black" and not much else. Blacks and Latinos cannot coexist in the same party because they both want mutually exclusive things: Affirmative Action (only so much to go around) and control over the same neighborhoods.
More importantly, as Dems become "Black" or let's face it "Black Only" same thing, there will be no room for Whites.
Heck McCain is practically Joe Lieberman anyway, so there's not much difference between Republicans today and Dems in say, 1996.
The realignment, the putsch, the revolutionary act will just marginalize Dems. They'll be Black. With a smattering of gays, billionaires, hard left lunatics.
Already RNC is running ads in the South (MS, LA) tying local Dems to Obama and Wright. Using the more incendiary comments of Wright.
They believe that is a winner. RNC is probably correct.
Eddar: I don't know if he can pull it off.
Wright has generously offered his neck. It will be chopped off. Obama will make a speech in the next few days, one that again will be described as historical. The issue of Wright will no longer be discussed.
We are about to see a neck-snapping turnabout by Barack Obama.
Derek
I'll add that Gas is predicted to go to $10 a gallon by some analysts.
Normally that would doom Republicans.
However, Wright shows Obama to be nothing more than a constant shakedown artist, demanding Whites give Blacks money.
That's tolerable in good times. Middle/Working class appetite for an endless shakedown (money out of their pockets) with $10 gas is not.
Whoever plays the Angry Jacksonian card the best will win. Even Hillary can play it. The more economic stress, the angrier the Jacksonians get. The more bitter fights become over slicing up the pie.
Teresita:
He said that antisemitism is Godless and an anti-semitic theology is as well. Pope John Paul II said the same thing, by the way, and earned Hagee's public admiration. If your Dad was anti-semitic, then I agree with your statement. If he wasn't anti-semitic, then you're lying about both your father (by inference) & Hagee (directly) and should be ashamed. For shame. Tut, tut.
As for God cursing those who curse Israel, it's a quote from the Bible,(a book frequently referenced in Protestant AND Catholic churches during sermons).
You failed to research this. Donohue isn't a good researcher either (he's paid to get pissed off and yell) so don't take everything he says as confirmed. There were 2 statements Hagee made that were arguably inappropriate - but I'll let you figure out that since I'm tired of doing your homework for you.
Cheers.
Obama is getting the Reverend Wright cable news saturation over and done with now, in the primary season, so it will be a dead horse in the general. Come September he will roll his eyes at any further questions about Jeremiah Wright and say, "That again? How many different ways can I say I repudiate and reject Pastor Wright? Proceed to the next question please."
I think this is going to be very damaging to Obama and the Democrats in general. Such hatred is sure to touch a nerve with a large part of the population.
Obama's problem is that any attempt by Obama to disassociate himself from Wright now will be a day late and a dollar short. He had his chance to do that when the story first broke and he didn't -- doing it now will never fly with the majority of the people.
Wright did what he did because he is reaching for power just like Obama is. It is ironic that a few weeks after Obama threw his grandmother under the bus, Wright threw him under the bus. As the old saying goes, "what goes around, comes around."
The Democrats have a complete mess on their hands. In the near term they either become the Black party of a rump center-left party. Neither scenario bodes well for them.
Ooops, that last should read...
or a rump center-left party.
eddar: As for God cursing those who curse Israel, it's a quote from the Bible,(a book frequently referenced in Protestant AND Catholic churches during sermons).
Obviously you are unfamiliar with this book, because in Genesis God actually says to Abraham "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Israel is only one branch of Abraham's progeny. The entire Arab people trace back to Abraham through the twelve sons of Ishmael. And to fulfill the verse, all the families of the earth are blessed through the greatest descendent of Abraham: Jesus. Those who limit the blessing to the nation of Israel that exists in the Levant today do damage to the scriptures.
Eddar: Teresita:
Obama sat for 20 years and drank the poison of an anti-American frothing racist. I watched approximately 4 hrs of tape in the 90's. There is no comparison and insisting there is shows a profound inability to reason or recognize fact.
Even if I grant you that what Reverend Wright said was "poison", you can't state as a fact, forensically, that Obama was brainwashed by it, any more than I can say McCain was programmed by the North Vietnamese, through torture, to be a sort of Manchurian Candidate. That's something that can only be determined by what the candidate himself actually says and does on the campaign trail. We've got the Philadelphia speech, but I guess for people who aren't voting for a Donk anyway, it's not enough. Well, it's never enough. We'll see on the night of November 4.
Teresita:
Let's just leave the wrangling of Biblical theory to those better suited than us, since in many denominations the "rootstock of Abraham" (NT) & "sons of Abraham" (archaic Eng. usage) is identified with Israel solely and specifically excludes the Arabs (Caananites & others) due to other specific passages in the OT, while other (?) denominations have your interpretation. (which is the first of its kind I have seen it applied to this verse) (I have also never seen Israel of today being so vehemently disconnected from biblical identification.)
It was intended as a humorous prod, by the way. Sorry I didn't make it light-hearted enough. My apologies.
Jeremiah Wright, along with some others I could name, definitely wishes to sink the Obama campaign. Why? Because Wright is a racial Luddite.
Obama was making a pretty good show of running a non-racial campaign. Had he continued unmolested, the race-hustlers would
have found themselves without much of an audience.
Thius is what has brought the Klu Klux Tan out in force.
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Jeremiah Wright, along with some others I could name, definitely wishes to sink the Obama campaign. Why? Because Wright is a racial Luddite.
Obama was making a pretty good show of running a non-racial campaign. Had he continued unmolested, the race-hustlers would
have found themselves without much of an audience.
I thought along those lines in previous posts, saying that I had figured out what Obama was, but not who he was; and almost hoped that he would be fundamentally a man of the left rather than a man for himself, in a manner of speaking.
This has always been the unresolved question in my mind. I can see how the young Barack went up through the system. And for a man of his background choosing to run in the Democratic Party that ladder would inevitably go through rungs like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.
But having risen so far, Obama would be tempted to ditch the "activists" as baggage. I have often remarked that the key difference between Nader and Obama was that Obama knew how to run on the "inside track" and while Nader remained stuck in the same old radical ghetto. So maybe Barack is ready to ditch the Reds. But maybe the activists aren't ready to ditch him. They're not prepared to be given the kiss off but go all the way into the White House with him.
Now let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Obama is willing to throw anyone under a bus for expediency. If Wright's no longer his daddy, who's his daddy now? In some sense I'd rather have Wright be his daddy than Nahdmi Auchi. Or someone else.
Obama can't run on the basis of his natural base. That base was a golden staircase to the lower levels of electoral office, but it's poison in the general for the top national office. His youthful choices created both a fast track and a ceiling for him. Now he needs to reach past that ceiling. How's he going to do it? And remember that if the Left and the Media are millstones they are also his enablers. Without them he'd be Alan Keyes or something. So it's a touch choice, which someone once described as being trapped in a burning room with your pecker nailed to the floor and sharp knife beside it. He needs to either tough out the flames or reach for the knife.
Dave said...
Jeremiah Wright, along with some others I could name, definitely wishes to sink the Obama campaign. Why? Because Wright is a racial Luddite.
Obama was making a pretty good show of running a non-racial campaign. Had he continued unmolested, the race-hustlers would
have found themselves without much of an audience.
This is what has brought the Klu Klux Tan out in force.
Wow! I think you're seriously right. The race hustlers are the real losers of the Obama campaign. The Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, etc. are kindof like the labor unions - they're in it for the money. Obama had basically cut off these bozo's with his "lets all come together speech" a month ago. Wright was probably just the sacrificial dimwit used by ORH (organization of race hustlers) to nuke Obama.
No, I don't for one second believe that Obama has the proverbial snowballs chance in hell now in the general election. Of course he can still win the primary, but the loony left never wins the general election unless they are following a Gerald Ford, and GWB is a hundred time better than Ford.
Obama is history, unfortunately. Hillary's flying monkeys got him.
Obama's career path is the Democratic Party personified. What's good in the primary is toxic in the general. So a dynamic has developed whereby candidates are actually expected to lie, and when the "pivot" comes, it just accepted as part of what it takes. Maybe Wright sees this as a teaching moment: if you have enought faith, you won't have to pivot. The golden staircase can go on forever, like the scene from Indiana Jones. No pivot necessary.
Speaking of pivots, how can Sullivan go from praising Obamas for delivering one of the best speeches on race in American history to begging him to ditch Wright and thereby negating one of the central points of the speech.
A terrible blindness has overcome too many. What to do?
I think Gergen is correct. Jeremiah Wright is a sideshow.
Disagree. This gem over on Althouse sums it up better than I could:
"Since Obama has been marketing his insipidity as if it were a flavor in its own right, we end up having to worry about what he's been sitting next to on the refrigerator shelf all this time." - Zrimsek 4/28/08
"Personally, I think the Democratic Party will be dragged kicking and screaming into doing exactly as Wright wants. They can't lose the black vote. They'd rather lose in 2008 than smash the Rainbow coalition they've built over the years.
So my prediction is that Wright has gamed it this way. He's making a play for the soul of the Democratic Party. He's prepared to lose 2008, knowing that even if Obama loses the general election, Obama in the leftist hagiography, will be even greater than if he had won.
Like the weathermen to SDS, and Hamas to the PLO. Code Pink lost its grip and had not the leverage to maintain control of the party. This is Wrights and others bid for power. Makes sense of the nonsense. I like the clarity.
But the heart of the donk has already been marginalized, their base will leave in droves if this is the face they put on the beast.
Whiskey_199 -We are witnessing the "White Flight" from the Democratic Party. The more Obama, prominent Black Dems and preachers and so on defend Wright, the more the Dem Party becomes "100% Black." "It's a Black Thing" may be a "cool" message that radiates hipness but repels the white voter who doesn't live in the Getty Mansion.
Don't delude yourself.
States are reporting Democrat Party registration is exploding. That includes masses of white working class and Catholics lining up to register to support Hillary, not old crabby Bush+ McCain.
People who identify as "Republican" is declining. People will vote on economic issues before anything, and Bush and his Corporate Cronyism, job outsourcing, and shifting all productivity gains and tax cuts to the wealthy has been a complete disaster for Republicans. Add in the incompetency on War, Katrina, fiscal responsibility, diplomacy, and energy crisis ?
You have an election the Democrats will have to work very hard to lose, and Wright may not be enough to stop an Obama victory. And even if Obama loses, there are the REST of the elections. You may see veto-and-filibuster proof Democrat majorities in Congress, passing of several more State Houses and Governorships to Democratic control.
You may see some pissed off female Hillary backers, Reagan democrats, and Likudnik Jews vote against Obama, but pull the straight Democrat Party lever outside Obama.
Long term, the matter of rampant black bigotry, the lawyers calling all the shots, cowardace abroad, the Nanny State, anti-Americanism, and PC may wreck the Democrat Party - but not in 2008 - when the stench of a Failed President and a Republican Party little better than a pack of Corporate Whores - is pervasive.
As things stand, other than a small pack of neocons and the Southern Fundies, the Republican Party is in far greater danger of extinguishing itself as the inept, corrupt, Party of the Rich and the Theocrats - than the Democratic Party is in danger of entinguishing itself by becoming so big and inclusive that it has another Civil War.
Even Latinos are registering 70-30 with the Democrats.
Wretch,
To say the Jere Wright is a side show is quite ridiculous.
The Founding Fathers recognized race as "the snake under the table" when they put the country together.
We fought a civil war over life styles that clashed, the primary cause being slavery.
"The situation may indeed have begun to feed on itself," reads a gloomy reflection in the Moynihan Report. Published in 1965, few public documents have been the subject of so much misunderstanding and scorn.
Watts
Rodney King
Attica
Selma
Freedom Riders
1964 Civil Rights Act
This is no side show it's racial war and has been for this countries entire history.
New York Riots 1863
WWII Detroit Race Riots
A side show? Get real. You've got 14% of the population attempting to wag the dog. For fifty years you've had increasing white liberal guilt feeding into black racial hatred of the USA.
If Wright continues we'll see more riots, killings, perhaps a resurgence of white vigilantes who've experience several generations of African American preferences being showered on them and still we are god damned.
If Wright believes he can win the gathering storm he is delusional.
But a side show. No this is the real deal coming to fruition. If Obama loses the nomination or the election you'll see flames in every city because that is the black way.
If he wins, he'll reap the whirlwind of his Marxist black theology beliefs.
What will happen now ….
……is what has happened before.
In the late 90’s Clinton was defended by the left and media (“ah but I repeat myself”) from charges of serial falandery and perjury in the following sequence:
1) He did not lie
2) You can not prove that he lied
3) It does not matter that he lied
The left slowly backed into a defense of lies and dishonesty from which they have never recovered.
In the late 00’s Wright has been defended by the same group from charges of racism, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the following sequence:
1) He did not say it
2) He was quoted out of context
The next step will be
3) He had the courage to speak the truth
The mainstream left will embrace and glorify their most hateful radicals.
BTW – this is what caused the fall of the Weimar republic. The left took every concession and demanded more. They finally backed themselves into a position that was unsustainable and their collapse left a power vacuum that was filled by the Nationalist Socialist Party.
cedarford demonstrates the hate that marginalizes liberal Democrats by writing.....People who identify as "Republican" is declining. People will vote on economic issues before anything, and Bush and his Corporate Cronyism, job outsourcing, and shifting all productivity gains and tax cuts to the wealthy has been a complete disaster for Republicans. Add in the incompetency on War, Katrina, fiscal responsibility, diplomacy, and energy crisis ?
So once thinking people start unwraveling and debunking the various mindless soundbites, they are left with nothing but hate.
Just how is this hate, as demonstrated by Cedarford, different from the hate of Rev Jim Wright? Wright's views are just as mindless as Cedarford's - at best a house card, at worst sheer lunacy.
Obama has tried to run a campaign avoiding the old politics of pandering to haters. But unfortunately hate is the most effective political force. So Obama was trying to leverage the "hate" of Hillary's politics. But I believe Hillary released the flying monkeys and they got him.
I really think Obama could handle this by totally rejecting Jim Wright - completely. At worst he would blow off off about half of the black vote (~13% of America's population). At best he would become much more electable in the eyes of rational people.
At some point, all electable liberals have to move to the center by ditching the far-left.
BHO and those clinging to his coat tails are projecting an attitude that may well destroy them.
Normally, Gas predicted at $10 a gallon, Oil at $200 a barrel, would be a Democratic landslide.
BUT ... GWB sent every voter in America a $600 check in the mail. Over Democratic objections.
McCain wants a Gas Tax Holiday while Obama opposes it. Hillary has plenty of Blue Collar support, but those can't and won't vote for Obama.
Because they'll LOSE. Times are tough. Which means zilch willingness for white voters to give money to black hustlers to keep the race-baiting down to a dull roar. Every penny counts.
All Dems under Obama (the nominee at this point) will offer is higher taxes to buy more mansions for Rev. Wright. White voters get nothing but more hard times AND endless apologies they have to make to Rev. Wright. For being "racist" and the like.
Blacks and Billionaires are not enough.
In fact, Dems being so captured by Billionaire loonies like Soros, Ted Turner ("we'll all be Cannibal zombies! from Global Warming") and race-baiting hustlers like Wright/Obama means zilch support from the average white voter in a year when it should be theirs.
Taxes will be higher. To pay for Billionaires concerns for Polar Bears, and Race Baiting Hustler's new mansions.
There is no pander. Meanwhile ... GWB gives every voter cash.
Much of the Democratic registration of course is "Operation Chaos" as Reps return the favor of Dems gaming their party's nomination and giving them McCain.
Latinos and Blacks are mutually exclusive. Only one can own Affirmative Action, which itself is just too costly for most Whites to support now, in hard time. Besides Latinos and Blacks also fight over control of neighborhoods. Latinos won't vote for the Black guy, they'll vote for McCain. Slam dunk.
Dems have Billionaires and Blacks. Hillary's voters (25%) have said they'd vote for McCain. Another 20% said they'd stay home. A bigger slice than Obama supporters.
Arguments that I'm right and you're wrong Cedarford: the RNC is running ads tying LA and MS Dems to Obama (they endorsed him) and Wright. The DNC objects. Each National Committee thinks the ads will be effective. We'll see.
But Dems have no economic argument. Just higher taxes in inflation/falling wages to pay for stuff that only Billionaires and Blacks want.
Where the heck is the base, economic pander to raise White Voter's incomes and drive down prices? There is none.
Heck McCain can offer a big dose of military spending that will "put America back to work" by building say, another 12 aircraft carrier groups. We can afford it. Cut welfare. That will be popular too among "typical white people."
All this PC/Multiculti stuff was a luxury for rich times. Politics is now who can pander the most to the most voters.
"All this PC/Multiculti stuff was a luxury for rich times. Politics is now who can pander the most to the most voters."
Love it! But when was politics anything else?
Being the Messiah, I would expect he would grip the nail, and with a supernatural pull, extract that nail from the floorboards.
Picking up the knife, he turns toward the door, pausing long enough to nail the door with the knife from across the room.
He then stroles out, using the knife to pull the burning door closed behind him.
"cedarford demonstrates the hate that marginalizes liberal Democrats by writing"
C-fudd's a Democrat now because he realizes there are more of his fellow antisemitic misfucks and losers in the Democrats than the Republicans now. And they'll enthusiastically join him in sucking off Hezzie savages like his idols Carter and Buchanan.
i can never puzzle out where gary rosen stands on the issues--
:-D
Smooths things over like a politician.
Sam said...
The Wrong Stuff
In my ongoing effort to help WEEKLY STANDARD readers better understand the modern left, I'll offer a few theories:
1. THE FIGHTING NETROOTS! -- I bore witness when the Netroots became an influential political force. One of their distinguishing characteristics is to greet every challenge from the right as if it is of Biblical significance. Thus, the rather small potatoes issue of whether John Edwards should have retained his potty-mouthed bloggers became a virtual World War III for the progressive blogging community. It's important to remember that the Netroots came into being as an opposition movement. Their founding charter basically demanded that they oppose everything the right did, said, or thought.
Old habits die hard. Because the right will make an issue of Jeremiah Wright, the left feels the need to defend him. This is the kind of reactive politics they often practice. Even though there's nothing to be gained for them in defending Jeremiah Wright, they just can't help themselves.
-
3. NOW A MATTER OF SOME SENSITIVITY -- In some quarters of the left, even Reverend Wright's most hysterical pronouncements fail to register shock. Indeed, proclamations such as, "What we are doing is the same thing al Qaeda is doing under a different color flag," almost certainly trigger a chorus of approving "Harrumphs" in faculty lounges across the land. At Hollywood soirees, stars are probably heaving an enormous sigh of relief that someone has finally found the courage to speak truth to power.
-
Of course, most people in America find Wright's comments repugnant. Obama's efforts to distance himself from Wright and his labeling Wright's comments offensive provide evidence that Wright and his baggage are a political loser. But some on the left like Wright and his baggage. Reverend Wright's moment in the media spotlight has given his fellow believers an occasion to rally around their strange flag...
Which would give new meaning to the stigmata of the saints.
Meanwhile, in Manilla:
In the afternoons, Ringo Purganan, a 20-year-old who is training to be a cook, pedals his bicycle home through the densely populated barrio of Krus na Ligas in Quezon City, outside Manila. His mother usually leaves some bread and fruit juice for him to snack on before he returns to work.
But today, the kitchen is empty save a plastic container half-filled with rice grains. His daily earnings of about $4.70, and the wages from his mother's job washing dishes at a university canteen, can't buy enough food for his six-person family. With the price of rice having nearly tripled in recent months, the Purganans usually skip breakfast. "It can be hard to accept things as they are, but we survive," he says.
---
Cutler said...
Two decades or so ago one of those feminist organizations blasted NATO for discimination, listing Iceland as one of the countries that refused to allow women to join their armed forces...
not realizing Iceland has no official armed forces.
While some are a bit too complex to be believed, I've enjoyed much of the speculation in this post and its comments.
I've a bit of scholarly support for that which Wretchard raises at this portion of his 4/28/2008 09:21:00 PM comment.
Jeremiah Wright, along with some others I could name, definitely wishes to sink the Obama campaign. Why? Because Wright is a racial Luddite.
Obama was making a pretty good show of running a non-racial campaign. Had he continued unmolested, the race-hustlers would
have found themselves without much of an audience.
Back in early 1995, Professor Robert Higgs posted The Myth of "Failed" Policies is which he repeatedly demonstrated how failures at a variety of government institutions were actually spectacular successes for the survival and advancement of those who run them.
This speculation suggest the question: "Why should the phenomenon be restricted to monopolistic governmental institutions?" Why not see it in play here where the race hustlers don't want to lose their monopolistic control of a vast segment of underclass, control achieved by milking feelings of marginalization?
With the symbolic eradication of the most obvious glass ceiling looming in Obama's success, how can the hustlers continue to claim marginalization? And all this is going on while everybody, Left and Right, is kowtowing to the new kids from the barrio. There already is an ongoing revolt at the prospect of losing their long held and coveted head of the minorities position.
Thus I'd elevate your speculation here to a brilliant surmise, Mr. Wretchard.
Black Churches weeded out from the elements that propel the statists' quest for power? Sure. That's progress.
Should Obama succeed, Rev. Wright clearly sees his personal loss looming, unceremoniously ejected, as the Metamorphosis of fascistic elements brutes on.
Pascal Fervor,
The problem with coalitions is that they are prone to fracture when conditions change. A coalition in opposition behaves differently from an coalition preparing to take power.
In particular, Barack Obama, in order to win, has to form a coalition with white voters. The winning coalition includes white people, asians, businesses, etc which looks very different from a coalition in opposition.
So the implied problem of Obama in this situation is that in building one coalition he is essentially leaving another. But it's not quite that simple. Because the technical characteristics of the process mean that in order to join the winning coalition (i.e. get elected) he needs the coalition in opposition.
In plain words, Obama needs Wright's help to build a coalition with whitey. Needs the black resentment vote to connect with the "bitter", gun toting, Bible-thumping Pennsylvanians. But after he does that, the residual utility of people like Wright declines rapidly.
Wright will never be as powerful as he is right now. And he knows it.
For Obama the calculus is harder. If he is truly a man of the Left his problem is to preserve the power of the coalition in opposition in the coalition in power. Because the coalition in opposition will not change its values, that means inserting them by main force into the winner's circle.
If he is totally cynical, Obama will use Wright, Ayers and Rezko like a disposable tissue and dump them if they hinder his drive to power. That he's hesitated so far suggests a tragedy which implies this:
Yes Barack Obama is a man of the Left and yes, Wright's grandstanding has made him show his hand sooner than he would. Although Obama will probably denounce Wright in the next few days the hesitation means I think better of Obama as a man now, and much less of him as a potential President. It's not personal, just businesss.
I'm a white guy and I watched the OJ trial gavel to gavel.
The prosecution lost the case because the LAPD enhanced the evidence. Something that was proven they did regularly in the rampart Scandal.
They lost the case because the police tried to frame a guilty man.
Just deserts I'd say.
Wretchard,
So my prediction is that Wright has gamed it this way. He's making a play for the soul of the Democratic Party. He's prepared to lose 2008, knowing that even if Obama loses the general election, Obama in the leftist hagiography, will be even greater than if he had won.
In a very subtle way, it's a putsch.
4/28/2008 06:21:00 PM
The armed wing is organizing. There will be real gunpowder. Cities burning. Death in the streets.
Recreate '68 will see to that.
BTW you have finely articulated in that comment what I have been thinking for some time.
From the point of view of Wright's pocket book losing is more valuable than winning. It "proves" his thesis.
Cedarford: As things stand, other than a small pack of neocons and the Southern Fundies, the Republican Party is in far greater danger of extinguishing itself as the inept, corrupt, Party of the Rich and the Theocrats - than the Democratic Party is in danger of entinguishing itself by becoming so big and inclusive that it has another Civil War.
Even Latinos are registering 70-30 with the Democrats.
It is said that Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line. The Democrats are going to have great make-up sex after they pick their nominee, while the Republicans are going to plug their nose and vote for McCain. So it will come down to a few states once again to decide.
"I think better of Obama as a man now"
---
I don't consider him to be a man, but a shell, 100% Artifice.
I don't consider him to be a man, but a shell, 100% Artifice.
Love is whatever you can still betray. I've known for some time that Obama is a hustler. But he was a hustler for them. He was a fraud for them. And now he's going to cross the bridge over to our side. We've got his daughter in an asylum, just as Smiley did. And Obama's lighter is down on the street, glinting in the rain. His betrayl of his treachery.
If would never vote for him, even if I could. But the fact that he hestitated before he served his ambition makes me sad.
"...the fact that he hesitated before he served his ambition makes me sad."
To this point Obama hasn't really shown that he is capable of doing anything other than hesitate in front of a decision like this. Right now he's a deer in the headlights, and maybe that's all he is.
This happens more often than you might think. The corporate version currently in process is the Yahoo founders' inability to do anything but suck their thumbs in the face of competition from Google, and now an acquisition attempt by Microsoft.
"To this point Obama hasn't really shown that he is capable of doing anything other than hesitate in front of a decision like this."
---
Exactly.
The fact that he has reacted similarly in situations having little to nothing to do with his humanity, demonstrates little, other than being a fakir in over his head.
---
w/o a teleprompter or an adoring crowd, he's batting Zero.
(all my opinions are prejudiced by his sending his girls to that Church, maybe that's just me.)
Steve Sailer has had numerous thoughtful things to say about Senator Obama. (For one thing, as far as Steve can tell, by many months, he was the first blogger, pundit, etc. to read Sen. Obama's Autobiography all the way through, wearying preposition and subordinate phrase after another). Some of the things Steve has written could well supplement some of the more respectable analyses at the Belmont Club. Check out his posts for April 29 and April 28.
If Obama's autobiography was poorly written, that is a sign that he actually wrote it, and it wasn't a piece of public relations crafted by a ghost writer. George Tenet wrote a 500 page tome painting himself in a golden light, with not a single footnote or source for his assertions, as though everything came out of the steel thingamajig he called his mind. I have no doubt he wrote that himself as well.
Bobal said:
"It's simple. Wright likes the sound of his own voice, and he's nuts. That's what Occam told me."
Yes, it does seem that simple in some ways, i.e., that he likes the sound of his own voice, not that he's nuts. When you listen to the National Press Club event, your first impression might be that what Wright is saying is no different from the riff you've heard a thousand times on campus or in Jesse Jackson events. Wright is lefty mainstream, formulaic, not a radical. For the left, Wright elicits a shrug. For the right, apoplexy. The question will be, as many note above, what do undecided voters think?
wright is to farrakhan
as
chavez is to ahmadinejad
who are the oppressors?
What is interesting is that Jeremiah has exposed an element of American society that probably just wasn't on anyone's radar - certainly not mine, in how much the black community is in a parallel universe and how they feel deep down about America and whites.
I am a Protestant, and one of the things we have discussed in our church is how to reach out to other races. We have a lot of Asians who attend, some latinos, but almost no blacks. I am told that this is true across most churches in America, and I am beginning to understand why.
This is sad as I am now understanding what is being taught in black churches - it is pretty alarming the folks in the audiences in the videos agreeing with what is being said.
But, to my point, this is very similar to 9/11 when America woke up to the threat of Islam. I am sure prior to this, few people really cared about Saudi financed Wahabi imans and what they were preaching - now we know better.
The same for black churches in America. We have always had our charlatans - Al & Jesse. But now, we see the problem is far more extensive.
If the GOP were smart, they would try to hoover up most of the whites, asians, and latinos. JW and Obama has got to be scarring them too.
Let the democrats become who they really want to be.
Teresita said...
eddar: As for God cursing those who curse Israel, it's a quote from the Bible,(a book frequently referenced in Protestant AND Catholic churches during sermons).
Obviously you are unfamiliar with this book, because in Genesis God actually says to Abraham "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Israel is only one branch of Abraham's progeny. The entire Arab people trace back to Abraham through the twelve sons of Ishmael. And to fulfill the verse, all the families of the earth are blessed through the greatest descendent of Abraham: Jesus. Those who limit the blessing to the nation of Israel that exists in the Levant today do damage to the scriptures.
But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.
T, when you take MY people’s BOOK out of context you can come up with all kinds of shit...
abraham, Isaac & jacob baby....
Yes the G-d of the Hebrew Scriptures promisedthe children of hagar would be plentiful but in NO way are they intent on the Blessing of Israel.
Patterco notes that Andrew Sullivan has, ah, "seen the light"
But, sometime in the three hours that followed this last post earlier today, Andrew managed to actually consider just what it is that Obama’s spiritual guide and father figure has been really saying over the last 48 hours — rather than simply derisively dismiss the firestorm in the blogosphere today — and now he’s suddenly singing from a different transcendental hymnal:
"I guess I am late to the party, am I not? I didn’t watch Jeremiah Wright’s National Press Club performance live this morning, as every other blogger seemed to. Wright is not on the ticket of any major party, he is not Barack Obama, and I’m not going to be baited into making this campaign about him, or the boomer cultural racial obsessions that so many want this vital election to be about.
"But then I actually read what he said."
Rove is off his game otherwise he would have had JC Watts or Mike Steele running for the Repubs. He obviously didnt anticipate the depths to which the democrats would stoop in order to cater to the hater.
Again, I offer that the hate of their county is merely a projection of their own self loathing/autophobia.
Does this make the hate any less real? Nope. How do we help these people feel good about themselves? Providing a sports car and a McMansion didn't suffice for the damned Reverend.
I guess I've been less than observant, I guess I haven't been watching - or maybe I've been unable to see the forest for the trees. Growing up in "flyover country", in small-town America in the West has made me think things are just not the same as Wright sees things.
Where I live the idea of a church that is solely for one race or one sub-culture of people is an anathema to the concept of America. Segregation is seen as an expression of evil and hate. The only majority-of-one-background church are those that serve new immigrants in a fashion that is never exclusive and only is that way due to language difficulties. Sure, you see churches with majority Mexican populations, but the thought of them being somehow reserved for only one type of people is unthinkable. There are a very very few that are captured by crazed activists, but even those would never preach such a departure from American and biblical ideals that Wright is spouting.
Maybe I'm too pollyanna-ish, but I can't believe that the so-called "black community" on the whole has anything to do with scumbag Afro-Nazis like Wright. Maybe it's because I didn't live in big cities - or maybe it is because I haven't lived in the Eastern big cities where it seems people enjoy implicit segregation and resist assimilation into just plain old American culture. This is just alien and nauseating to me to even contemplate - that these types of virulent racists aren't mocked when they appear.
I just don't understand how anyone outside of a few dyed-in-the-wool failed sixties marxists would give Herr Wright anything but derision and contempt.
Maybe I'm just way too idealistic - maybe I've been unable to see things in front of my face - but here, where I live, skin color is as significant as someone's toenail clippings. Maybe I hang with an unrealistic bunch of people who all happen to enthusiastically believe in the melting pot of American society. Maybe we, my friends and I, are just pollyanna-ish conservatives that are out of touch with how things really are. I hope not, though.
I hope that Wright and his Afro-Nazi heretical goosestepping flock are anomalies. I hope that this is just a symptom of multiculturalism impeding assimilation in big, liberal-controlled Eastern cities and not a general undercurrent in American society at large.
If it is truly more common than it is out here, then hopefully this will put the final nail in the coffin of segregation-as-multiculturalism and let us get back to the melting pot. I mean, everyone can see that people like Wright and Cone are evil now, unvarnished and unapologetic racist marxist bigots.
Hopefully this is the death-knell of such vile anti-Americanism and bizarre racial separatism. Hopefully people will see that racism isn't what ivory-tower liberal lunatics define, but is just simply evil craziness from dickweeds of any racial background. They'll see that Wright = David Duke = Al Sharpton, and consign all of them to the garbageheap of stupid.
Then we can get back to the real work having backyard barbeques with our friends, watching our families and businesses grow, and never sparing a second bothering to think about anyone's skin color. Barbeques, at least in my America, are far more important.
I just hope that my friends and I aren't the statistical anomalies.
I go for Wretchard's take. ie that black liberation theology is just the black franchise of liberal ideology. I first saw obama's church's website earlier in the year. My impression at the time was that all its ideological tenants match point for point stuff I saw in the social science departments at columbia university 30 years ago. They remain to this day.
Newt gave his support to some of you here this morning.
Charles,
My impression at the time was that all its ideological tenants match point for point stuff I saw in the social science departments at columbia university 30 years ago. They remain to this day.
It was bull shit then and it's bull shit today. Wright gonna get his USKKKA and it will be a good cleansing.
so the white conservative power base will be fighting to the death Islamists (and "moderate" Muslims) outside the U.S., and also fighting to the death the black/white race war that has never been settled internally.
We don't really care about Code Pink, the illegal Mexicans, and the campus "radicals" because while noisy, they are essentially powerless.
I'm betting the Asians will side with the white powerbase. and I'm betting those two groups will win financially, politically and legally.
Illegal Mexicans should watch the fight that's going to come now that Wright has thrown down his "gimme" gauntlet. It will be instructive for them on what NOT to do.
Oh, and we'll also be taking out the Muslims simultaneously since Code Pink, Rev Wright, and illegal aliens are on the same page as the terrorists are, so let's just treat the whole foul bunch of them with the same broom.
Wright has seriously misjudged his power base.
what would make this place any better than Daily Kos
Not having you here would improve things. Like when we clean out the one holer.
WiO: But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.
Isaac had a son Esau, father of the Edomites. They settled in the area of Jordan southeast of the Dead Sea. No doubt many Jordanians today can trace back to Abraham through Esau.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel was obliterated by the Assyrians through forced intermarriage. No doubt many Syrians today can trace back to Abraham through Dan, Rueben, Simeon, etc.
Like I dine said. I'll be going after Obama.
Bring on the KKK. I have the Nation of Islam and all it's former convicts trained and ready.
We are with you Rev Wright.
Crackers are easily crushed.
Wretch Re: your various comments re personal/business - emotion vs. reason - Obama the "hustler" who you'd never vote for but still feel "sad" for etc...I appreciate your dualisms but I think there's a model of mind that might sublate the implicit break between head/heart - mind/body. "Imagination is what we need, man." as the Man said in "Shoot the Piano Player." I think Obama has that and his capacity for empathy is not opposed to his smarts. It's his, ah, base.
Maybe we should all try to get a little deeper into the emotional side here. I'm thinking (? - giving myself too much credit!) out loud now, but there's probably something to be gained by recognizing there are more than a few posters here who offer up opinions on race that are shot through with the flip sides of the racial animosities that Wright regularly works through...In this thread, I recall one fellow invoking centuries of "race war" that he seems to think was largely about different "life styles." Wright's own version of the life styles argument - all his talk about difference - is a little more life-affirming than those Clubbers who associate Black history and culture not with what's best in American dance/music/style/political Movements but with out-of-wedlock births and Willie Hortons...I invoke the harsh posts at the Club not as a gotcha but to bring home the salience of emotion/belief and to point out that Wright has got more historical reasons on his side than sundry aggrieved white Clubbers. Though of course he has his own reasons too. (Along with an unhealthy measure of fantasies/duplicities.)
I don't think Obama should speak to the personal here at this point. Who knows the depths of Wright's ego?
But maybe O now does have a chance/obligation (?) to define a post 9/11 stance for a genuinely New Left in America. (Man - we're asking an awful lot of this pol!) I think he could point to Wright (and mebbe even Ayers) as he comes out as an American Greatness Liberal. And if he goes BIG, he doesn't have to lie. He could acknowledge that as a GREAT country (like any Great Man/Woman)America has done some Large evil as well as grand good. He could speak to the truths that can't be wished away now just because America-haters hold them to be self-evident.
By the way - it occurs to me that we may be in (the middle of) a moment that's something like the flow that led up to Obama's race speech. I looked back to the run-up to that speech (and my Club posts) at the end of a piece I posted a couple weeks back at firstofthemonth.org. Doubt you'll want to link as it's not really your cup of tea but...here it is...The Club references are at the end
http://www.firstofthemonth.org/archives/2008/04/cross_the_borde.html
Nation of Islam bringing back Black Power. Never happen? Just wait soft whitey.
Tessy,
Come on over to DKos..we'll make you comfortable and you'll be in your element.
Strap On verses 24:1-3 says.
"Strap one on and your cares are gone"
Nomenklatura said:
"To this point Obama hasn't really shown that he is capable of doing anything other than hesitate in front of a decision like this. Right now he's a deer in the headlights, and maybe that's all he is."
I suspect Wretchard is assuming too much cleverness on the part of Reverend Wright and Barack Hussein. My guess is that Nomenklatura's above comment is closer to the truth.
Isaac had a son Esau, father of the Edomites. They settled in the area of Jordan southeast of the Dead Sea. No doubt many Jordanians today can trace back to Abraham through Esau.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel was obliterated by the Assyrians through forced intermarriage. No doubt many Syrians today can trace back to Abraham through Dan, Rueben, Simeon, etc.
absolute utter nonsense....
do you make this shit up as you go or do actually read this crap somewhere?
syrians, jordanians dont trace their roots back thru Israel, they trace it thru ISHMAEL.... many ancient peoples are gone, this doesnt mean the currect crop of squatters (the arabs) are descendants of these biblical people..
are you smoking crack?
the Tribe of DAN has had remnants from ethiopia, and they are jews...
but your concept that syrians and jordanians are the lost tribes of israel make me vomit...
the arab world doesnt trace it's heritage thru Israel and to suggest that shows your real lack of knowledge of the Jews and their history...
please stick to self induced pleasure with vibrating toys, not jewish history....
you just look like an ass
Pascal Fevor and Wretchard, etal...I certainly agree that a controversial loss of the nomination empowers Wright and black rights leaders (of which Wright craves to becomea notable member).
However the timing of Wright's talking head circuit causes me to disagree with the theory. His book is not due out until later this year (unknown release date). He's doing this prior to the last primaries.
He knows this may throw more votes to HRC in these primaries, thereby narrowing the gap. With narrow percentile difference between the two, the DNC can then make a case for supers for HRC because of electoral state numbers.
The loss of Obama's nomination is now not such a "steal" to the media and base, and sucks the wind out of their sails of indignation.
Had Wright started this *after* the last primaries, with Obama assumingly getting the lions share of popular votes, I could agree with your deliberate sabatoge theory.
I said earlier I feel this this a public divorce in the making as part of the campaign. Wright was going to be an albatross around BHO's neck until dealt with. As JW goes around, willingly taking on the "bad guy" role now - before the last primaries - BHO can drop the albatross with the "neck snap", as Derek described.
His "deer in the headlights" delay will be because of "deep soul searching" and heartache in ejecting such a long term influence. All will play in BHO's favor to the emotional voters' empathy.
It's a win win... JW gets his notoriety, and book sales soar. BHO has a cleaner path to POTUS with JW safely tucked away as a reject. Behind the scenes, it's business as usual.
And while black leaders *do* crave victimization, all leaders must enjoy a small measure of success to keep their flock. A BHO/POTUS with DNC holding all branches gives them a narrow window to majorly advance affirmative action policies... which they favor.
I think Wright and the black agenda has more to gain with an Obama win than a loss. Jus' a different POV for you.
Shivermetimbers: I am a Protestant, and one of the things we have discussed in our church is how to reach out to other races. We have a lot of Asians who attend, some latinos, but almost no blacks. I am told that this is true across most churches in America, and I am beginning to understand why.
There are about 2.3 million African-American Catholics in the US. Not all blacks opt into the Kill Whitey stuff. The Catholic Church is as diverse as the US population at large, but Hispanics represent about three times their numbers inside the church than they do in a straight head count.
WiO: please stick to self induced pleasure with vibrating toys, not jewish history....
Wretchard, what has happened to your sophisticated blog? It is turning into a right-wing version of the nutroots.
teresita said about Jeremiah Wright:
"He said "God Damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." That's his right. He's not a traitor for exercising free speech. Traitor is a word that gets tossed around too much. It means giving aid and comfort to the enemy."
Jeremiah Wright meets the constitutional definition of a traitor to America. He is adhering to America's enemies who also say "God Damn America," or "Death to America."
President Bush should imprison or deport Jeremiah Wright, and any other American citizen who publically says "God Damn America," or "Death to America," or any similar language of our enemies.
Just came from luncheon at a fast food franchise playing CNN. Barak's rureful dissolution of his public connection to the Reverend Wright was the "breaking news."
All I can say is "yous guys is prescient."
UPDATE: The "head snapping" has begun, as predicted.
Above link to today's press conference. "saddened"... and "outraged".
"“The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.”
More goodies at the link.
Storm-rider: Jeremiah Wright meets the constitutional definition of a traitor to America. He is adhering to America's enemies who also say "God Damn America," or "Death to America."
When you say "also say...Death to America" that means you are accusing Jeremiah Wright of saying "Death to America". If you can provide evidence of this, I will join you in calling Jeremiah Wright a traitor. But as far as saying "God Damn America" that's not treason, that's taking God's name in vain. It's legal.
It has been shown by careful scientific study (i.e., by scientists who allow that the analysis of global warming is substantially influenced by political pressure groups) that a steady diet of tantrums of the sort posted at Demokratische Untergrund inhibits neuronal and synaptic maturation & differentiation.
If we're going to insult each other, let's do it with a little more elegance, please.
Otherwise, we self-KOSify.
WiO, Tes: this is a bit off topic from the thread, but not from the issues you two are kicking about.
Esau also had a grandson, Amalek. Esau already was separated from the Blessing to which you are referring, but would nevertheless benefit from a lesser blessing, in part, a consequence of the primary one.
However, Amalek was destined to be the representative for all family members, both Israelite and Edomite, who would self-alienate from God and thus from The Blessing. "God will have war from Amalek generation to generation."
I have put off doing a wider exploration of the meaning of Amalek in part because so few clergy EVER mention him; and, hence, they never mention what constitutes his non-blood related imitators. Thus it seems to me that many fewer lay people would know of whom and of what I am speaking.
It always intrigued me that scripture would so clearly anticipate such behavior and also demonstrate that no matter what efforts are made, Amalek will NEVER disappear even after being specifically targeted for eradication.
Should anyone here be interested, let me know. I may write that piece sooner now rather than later.
Rev Wright receives a standing O from the NAACP attendees, raucous applause from the NPC but now his spiritual disciple claims that his rhetoric is antithetical. Is Obama now attacking the "Black Church"?
This entire Wrong (I mean Wright) Stuff is a smokescreen. It's being orchestrated perfectly to deflect attention away from Obama's really troubling links - to Rezko, to Africa, and even back to Oil For Food. Follow the Money.
Wretchard --
I don't think Obama fits the mold of the Philippines scam artists or those of the Left in other countries. There, you have masses of real poor people, who form the voting base and get offered "stuff" like Morales or Chavez offer.
Here, in the US, relative wealth has allowed Whites to buy off Blacks and other race-hustlers like Wright and Obama with money to go away. This forms Jessie Jackson's shakedown routine. It's easier to pay them off, for a while, with lots of wealth. They're a small portion of the population.
Obama's electoral coalition is not large. It's the Billionaires and Blacks. Apple Computer and Al Sharpton. Apple Computer stores are packed. They're still only 6% of the market. A niche play.
Obama is a niche player, who race-hustled his way up the top, and by his nature CANNOT transition. He can't do it.
Blacks want things: endless money and apologies that Whites are just fed up with and won't do any more in tough times. They are too small a slice of the demographics to intimidate. Sharpton had to back down on his calls to "shut down NYC" and while Obama's Mac-type white supporters will never ditch him, he'll never be mainstream. "PC" is parodied as uncool in the hip commercials for Apple, but that only appeals to a very small demo slice. Young hipsters with lots of money. Working people who make up the majority by cheap PCs from Wal Mart of Office Depot.
Obama threw Wright under the bus. But the attack ads "I can no more disown Rev. Wright than I can the Black Community or my own family" and "judge the man by the history of his work" etc. contrasted with his weak denunciations of the guy now write themselves. It's over.
By all accounts the structural weakness of the Republican Party, it's pandering to big business desire for cheap labor, ought to mitigate against it. But Dems want even more cheap labor for their Billionaires, and pander to Blacks who want "hate Whitey(tm)" stuff.
That's a transition that Obama cannot make. Clinton made it by picking early fights with Blacks, who had no where else to go. Obama moved too little, too late, after reflexively defending Wright like a small-time, small-town race hustler.
In tough times the vast majority of voters (white middle/working class) demand economic panders. Obama promises more taxes to go to guys like Wright.
And expect Wright's play. To supplant Rev. Al by showing lots of stuff he said with Obama clapping along. Or Hillary.
Obama ain't Karla. Or Smiley. He's not even smart enough to be big players like that. He's a small time grifter out of his league. A man who understands race-hustling and nothing else.
teresita,
I make no distinction between "Death to America" and "God Damn America."
Yes, the latter expression takes God's name in vain, but the meaning of the two phrases is otherwise the same.
Jeremiah Wright is a traitor and should be treated as such - shame on President Bush for not taking action.
Well here comes Obama's next move. On it's face, and coming from a reasonably smart lawyer, it's so stunningly inept I can hardly believe he's any longer even in this to win:
Obama says he's outraged by former pastor's comments
"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference... "The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," Obama said of the man who married him...
If he takes this line Obama exposes numberless vulnerabilities to the official and unofficial press, and to his opponents. For example:
- Records of Wright's sermons and other activities back over time are available. Obama even wrote about what Wright was saying at the time they first met - it can be documented that he hasn't suddenly changed.
- Even if one were to accept that Wright was different 20 years ago, the next question follows naturally: what about 6 months go? Obama has no good response to this question - almost any direction he takes from there would just throw up more troublesome questions and keep the issue alive.
- More subtly, how does Obama combat the emerging impression that when someone he knows turns out to be a certified (or certifiable) radical, suddenly he barely knows anything about them or their opinions (cf. Bill Ayers) even though a long paper trail is soon available that establishes otherwise?
This is a perilous moment for Obama's candidacy, because it appears that he's about to ask voters to believe a set of things that won't pass the laugh test. If he does that, then all that holds his campaign together is Democratic tribalism, plus the need for a pretext party members can coalesce around, enabling them to argue that dumping him wasn't about his race. If I were Obama I'd be nervous about what else might suddenly emerge from his Chicago past (e.g. via the ongoing Rezko trial).
O underscored that what got to him most was Wright's implication that O's previous criticism of his world-view was simply "political." On the down-low - according to Wright - O agreed w/ him. It does seem reasonable for O to take personal offence at being trashed by his homie. So I'm not sure that his sense of betrayal is, ah, unearned or put-on. In fact, the O campaign has always been a HARD NUT for the Old Left to swallow...Than you add in neo-Oedipal tensions and the political gets (sorry) personal. But then(pace Wretch) it's NEVER just business...
Nomen-
In all honesty, I can't see Obama's campaign recovering from this debacle enough that Rezko, or anything else would pose a threat to him. I have a feeling that people have already seen enough.
I mean, we are electing a president here. If Obama can't even handle his pastor, how will he cope with the world?
Disagree here, shropshirelad. BHO has achieved perfect "victim" status here... betrayal by his friend and mentor, and doing the "right thing" by publicly severing the relationship.
On the surface only, of course.
He will gain points and popular votes for his denouncement, and forever removes the Wright albatross from his neck in both primaries and general.
The media will, of course, over look that great "judgment" crack in the armor he has as well.
Wright has not doomed the BHO campaign. He has helped remove himself from the issues. A cleverly concocted campaign ploy.
Well, he got Andrew Sullivan back. (H/T Instapundit)
Anyone else noticing how really really REALLY quiet Oprah is being about the whole thing? Both her candidate and her ex-minister?
Makes me think it is hurtful to Obama and is not a strategy, if she's not included in it.
Tessy..
TREASON:
TREASON - This word imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of allegiance.
The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Unless you outlaw free speech Wright does not fall into the catagory of traitor. If you try to make your case on aid and comfort to the enemy you'd be laughed out of court.
Maybe I'm missing something, but what exactly has Teresita done to merit such crude remarks? I don't see anything at least in this thread.. I'm about as far from a sympathizer of Daily Kos stuff as there is, but I'd hate to see the gentlemanly and knowledgeable discussions here degenerate into an AOL caht room slimefest.
Obama has done exactly what Wright said pols do…..they say things they don't mean for expediency and to garner votes.
Obama had to say something so he urped up some minor tongue lashing.
The tremendously disturbing thing is that their are still so many, many voters buying into Obama's snake oil act.
The guy has surrounded himself with Marxist ideologists, he's plainly not a healer but a closet racist and yet many still buy into the rhetoric....it truly points out that the average IQ i just barely touches 100.
The transcript - sounnds pretty definitive, no?
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Before I start taking questions I want to open it up with a couple of comments about what we saw and heard yesterday. I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am. That's what I believe. That's what this campaign has been about.
Yesterday, we saw a very different vision of America. I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday.
You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.
They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.
Now, I've already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He's built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people. And what attracted me has always been their ministry's reach beyond the church walls.
But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.
Let me just close by saying this: I -- we started this campaign with the idea that the problems that we face as a country are too great to continue to be divided, that, in fact, all across America people are hungry to get out of the old divisive politics of the past.
I have spoken and written about the need for us to all recognize each other as Americans, regardless of race or religion or region of the country; that the only way we can deal with critical issues, like energy and health care and education and the war on terrorism, is if we are joined together. And the reason our campaign has been so successful is because we had moved beyond these old arguments.
What we saw yesterday out of Reverend Wright was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of those old divisions. Whatever his intentions, that was the result. It is antithetical to our campaign. It is antithetical to what I am about. It is not what I think American stands for.
And I want to be very clear that moving forward, Reverend Wright does not speak for me. He does not speak for our campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks.
But what I do want him to be very clear about, as well as all of you and the American people, is that when I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am.
And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign's about, I think, will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.
Last point: I'm particularly distressed that this has caused such a distraction from what this campaign should be about, which is the American people. Their situation is getting worse. And this campaign has never been about me. It's never been about Senator Clinton or John McCain. It's not about Reverend Wright.
People want some help in stabilizing their lives and securing a better future for themselves and their children. And that's what we should be talking about. And the fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage, for three or four consecutive days, in the midst of this major debate, is something that not only makes me angry but also saddens me.
So with that, let me take some questions.
Q: What are you going to do --
Q: Senator --
Q: Senator --
SEN. OBAMA: Yeah, go ahead.
Q: Why the change of tone from yesterday? When you spoke to us on the tarmac yesterday, you didn't have this sense of anger, outrage --
SEN. OBAMA: Yeah. I'll be honest with you: because I hadn't seen it yet.
Q: And that was the difference you --
SEN. OBAMA: Yes.
Q: Had you heard the reports about the AIDS comment?
SEN. OBAMA: I had not. I had not seen the transcript. What I had heard was that he had given a performance. And I thought at the time that it would be sufficient simply to reiterate what I had said in Philadelphia. Upon watching it, what became clear to me was that it was more than just a -- it was more than just him defending himself. What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that -- that -- that contradicts who I am and what I stand for. And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that -- that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see the -- the commonality in all people.
And so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS and suggestions that somehow Minister Farrakhan has -- has been a great voice in the 20th century, then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.
Jeff?
Q: Senator, what do you expect or what do you plan to do about this right now to further distance yourself, if you think you're going to do that? And does this say about your judgment to superdelegates, who are right trying to decide which Democratic nominee is better? Because your candidacy has been based on judgment, what does this say about it?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, as I said before, the person I saw yesterday was not the person that I had come to know over 20 years. I understand that -- I think he was pained and angered from what had happened previously, during the first stage of this controversy. I think he felt vilified and attacked, and I understand that he wanted to defend himself.
I understand that, you know, he's gone through difficult times of late, and that he's leaving his ministry after many years. And so, you know, that may account for the change.
But the insensitivity and the outrageousness, of his statements and his performance in the question-and-answer period yesterday, I think, shocked me. It surprised me. As I said before, this is an individual who has built a very fine church and a church that is well- respected throughout Chicago.
During the course of me attending that church, I had not heard those kinds of statements being made or those kinds of views being promoted. And I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency. I was a member of the church.
So you know, I think what it says is that, you know, I have not, you know, I did not run through -- run my pastor through the paces or review every one of the sermons that he had made over the last 30 years. But I don't think that anybody could attribute those ideas to me.
Q: What effect do you think this is going to have on your campaign?
SEN. OBAMA: You know, that's something that you guys will have to figure out. And you know, obviously we've got elections in four or five days. So we'll find out, you know, what impact it has.
But ultimately I think that the American people know that we have to do better than we're doing right now. I think that they believe in the ideas of this campaign.
I think they are convinced that special interest have dominated Washington too long. I think they are convinced that we've got to get beyond some of the same political games that we've been playing. I think they believe that we need to speak honestly and truthfully about how we're going to solve issues like energy or health care.
And I believe that this campaign has inspired a lot of people. And that's part of what, you know, going back to what you asked, Mike, about why I feel so strongly about this today.
You know, after seeing Reverend Wright's performance, I felt as if there was a complete disregard, for what the American people are going through and the need for them to rally together to solve these problems.
You know, now is the time for us not to get distracted. Now is the time for us to pull together.
And that's what we've been doing in this campaign. And, you know, there was a sense that that did not matter to Reverend Wright. What mattered was him commanding center stage.
Q: Have you had a conversation with Reverend Wright and --
SEN. OBAMA: No.
Q: What's going to happen if these distractions continue?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, the -- I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this. I don't think that he showed much concern for me. I don't -- more importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we're trying to do for the American people and with the American people.
And obviously, he's free to speak out on issues that are of concern to him and he can do it in any ways that he wants. But I feel very strongly that -- well, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive. And to the extent that he continues to speak out, I do not expect those views to be attributed to me.
Q: I remember after the story -- when the story immediately broke, Trinity Church -- the current pastor kind of defended Reverend Wright. I'm wondering -- I don't know how they reacted to the latest, but I'm wondering if you continue planning on attending Trinity.
SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, the new pastor -- the young pastor, Reverend Otis Moss, is a wonderful young pastor. And as I said, I still very much value the Trinity community. This -- I'll be honest, this obviously has put strains on that relationship, not because of the members or because of Reverend Moss but because this has become such a spectacle.
And, you know, when I go to church it's not for spectacle. It's to pray and to find -- to find a stronger sense of faith. It's not to posture politically. It's not -- you know, it's not to hear things that violate my core beliefs. And so -- you know, and I certainly don't want to provide a distraction for those who are worshipping at Trinity.
So as of this point, I'm a member of Trinity. I haven't had a discussion with Reverend Moss about it, so I can't tell you how he's reacting and how he's responding.
Okay? Katherine (sp)?
Q: Senator, I'm wondering -- to sort of follow on Jeff's question about you, know, why it's a little different now, have you heard from some of your supporters -- you know, you have some -- (off mike) -- supporters who expressed any alarm about what this might be doing to the campaign?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, the -- I mean, I don't think that it's that hard to figure out from -- if it was just a purely political perspective. You know, my reaction has more to do with what I want this campaign to be about and who I am. And I want to make certain that people understand who I am.
In some ways, what Reverend Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I've done during my life. It contradicts how I was raised and the setting in which I was raised. It contradicts my decisions to pursue a career of public service. It contradicts the issues that I've worked on politically. It contradicts what I've said in my books. It's contradicts what I said my convention speech in 2004. It contradicts my announcement. It contradicts everything that I've been saying on this campaign trail.
And what I tried to do in Philadelphia was to provide a context and to lift up some of the contradictions and complexities of race in America -- of which, you know, Reverend Wright is a part and we're all a part -- and try to make something constructive out of it. But there wasn't anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was, was a bunch of rants that -- that aren't grounded in truth, and you know, I can't construct something positive out of that. I can understand it. I, you know, the -- you know, people do all sorts of things.
And as I said before, I continue to believe that Reverend Wright has been a -- a -- a leader in the South Side. I think that the church he built is outstanding. I think that he has preached in the past some wonderful sermons. He provided, you know, valuable contributions to my family.
But at a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough. That's -- that's a show of disrespect to me. It's a -- it is also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign.
Q: Senator, did you discuss with your wife, after having seen Reverend Wright -- (off mike) -- and what was her --
SEN. OBAMA: Yeah. No, she was similarly -- anger.
Joe?
Q: Reverend Wright said that it was not an attack on him but an attack on the black church. First of all, do you agree with that?
And second of all, the strain of theology that he preached, black liberation theology, you explained something about the anger, that feeds some of the sentiments in the church, in Philadelphia.
How important a strain is liberation theology in the black church? And why did you choose to attend a church that preached that?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, first of all, in terms of liberation theology, I'm not a theologian. So I think to some theologians, there might be some well-worked-out theory of what constitutes liberation theology versus non-liberation-theology.
I went to church and listened to sermons. And in the sermons that I heard, and this is true, I do think, across the board in many black churches, there is an emphasis on the importance of social struggle, the importance of striving for equality and justice and fairness -- a social gospel.
So I think a lot of people would rather, rather than using a fancy word like that, simply talk about preaching the social gospel. And that -- there's nothing particularly odd about that. Dr. King obviously was the most prominent example of that kind of preaching.
But you know, what I do think can happen, and I didn't see this as a member of the church but I saw it yesterday, is when you start focusing so much on the plight of the historically oppressed, that you lose sight of what we have in common; that it overrides everything else; that we're not concerned about the struggles of others because we're looking at things only through a particular lens. Then it doesn't describe properly what I believe, in the power of faith, to overcome but also to bring people together.
Now, you had a first question, Joe, that I don't remember.
Q: Do you think --
SEN. OBAMA: Do I think --
Q: (Off mike.)
SEN. OBAMA: You know, the -- I did not view the initial round of soundbites, that triggered this controversy, as an attack on the black church. I viewed it as a simplification of who he was, a caricature of who he was and, you know, more than anything, something that piqued a lot of political interest.
I didn't see it as an attack on the black church. I mean, probably the only -- the only aspect of it that probably had to do with specifically the black church is the fact that some people were surprised when he was shouting. I mean, that is just a black church tradition. And so I think some people interpreted that somehow as -- wow, he's really -- he's hollering and black preachers holler and whoop and -- so that, I think, showed sort of a cultural gap in America.
You know, the sad thing is that although the sound bites I've -- as I stated, I think created a caricature of him. And when he was in that Moyers interview, even though there were some things that, you know, continued to be offensive, at least there was some sense of rounding out the edges. Yesterday I think he caricatured himself, and that was a -- as I said, that made me angry but also made me sad.
STAFF: Last question.
SEN. OBAMA: Richard.
Q: You talked about giving the benefit of the doubt before -- mostly, I guess, in the Philadelphia speech, trying to create something positive about that. Did you consult with him before the speech or talk to him after the speech in Philadelphia to get his reaction -- (off mike) --
SEN. OBAMA: You know, I tried to talk to him before the speech in Philadelphia. Wasn't able to reach him because he was on a -- he was on a cruise. He had just stepped down from the pulpit. When he got back, I did speak to him. And I -- you know, I prefer not to share sort of private conversations between me and him. I will talk to him perhaps some day in the future. But what I can say is that I was very clear that what he had said in those particular snippets, I found objectionable and offensive and that the intention of the speech was to provide context for them but not excuse them, because I found them inexcusable.
So -- yeah, go ahead.
Q: The other day, on Sunday, you were asked whether -- to respond to -- (off mike) -- is this -- you said you didn't believe in irreparable damage. Is this relationship with you and Wright irreparably damaged, do you think?
SEN. OBAMA: There's been great damage. You know, I -- it may have been unintentional on his part, but, you know, I do not see that relationship being the same after this. Now, to some degree, you know -- I know that one thing that he said was true, was that he wasn't -- you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."
He was never my "spiritual mentor." He was -- he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the -- the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn't accurate.
But he was somebody who was my pastor, and married Michelle and I, and baptized my children, and prayed with us at -- when we announced this race. And so, you know -- so I'm disappointed.
STAFF: Thank you.
SEN. OBAMA: All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Obama Says He's Outraged by Ex-Pastors Comments
Seeking to quell the political damage over the controversy, Senator Barack Obama described remarks made by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. as “appalling.”
Transcript: Obama’s Remarks | TV Watch: Pastor Speaks for Himself
---
Now the Gullible just have to buy the proposition that he would have been outraged, had he heard this before.
Patently Transparent to those who see.
Good old benj and his
"Liberation Web Protocols"
benj..
My God man has your mind gone to the mall...save us and just linked the damn thing, don't force feed us.
Do you know how many x's and o's you wasted and there are starving people in, oh, say, Somalia, yeah Somalia. Naturally they can't eat raw x's and o's but if we all did our part who knows what might happen?
oh ,here comes the change over to the new site....well where will go this time?
You give me HOPE for CHANGE in Africa as well as here, Von Rupert.
Ok.
J. Wright wants a fight, rhetorical or other wise he can have it in spades.
Whites aren't going to put Obama in the White House.
So bring it on.
“What particularly angered me is his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing,” Mr. Obama said. “Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I’m about knows that I’m about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people. "
---
Down is up,
trust me.
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Pascal Fervor: It always intrigued me that scripture would so clearly anticipate such behavior and also demonstrate that no matter what efforts are made, Amalek will NEVER disappear even after being specifically targeted for eradication.
The Amalekites were human cockroaches. They were like those inflatable punching clowns with heavy round bases that you could knock down seven times and they just came up eight times.
The first time they were completely wiped out was in Genesis 14:7 where it says, "And they returned, and came to En-mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar."
Poor Amalekites, doomed to experience genocide again and again forever, because "the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." (Exodus 17:16)
There were a number of skirmishes between the Israelites and the Amalekites all through the period of Joshua and the Judges, but finally a King ruled Israel, and God was tired of playing with his Amalekite food. He decided to make a final end to the Amalekites, so he commanded Saul thus (via Samuel): Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
1 Samuel 15:7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
Saul killed everyone except Agag, the King. God was furious. He said, "it repenteth me that I have set Saul up to be king."Apparently God knew what he was talking about when he said to kill them all. Because a little while later, sure enough, those darn Amelekites were right back on their ancient lands again, and David had to go and stamp them out for sure this time:
1 Samuel 27:8 And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive...
But when we get to chapter 30, those blasted Amalekites are back! And the really remarkable thing about these folks with nine lives, after being completely wiped out time after time, and then rising again, they seemed to show far more mercy than either Saul or David:
1 Samuel 30:1-2 And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire; And had taken the women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way.
Mataharley-
You might be right.
The performances we have seen by Wright and Obama might be performance pieces staged for a particular and highly sophisticated political end. And yet...I wonder.
I don't know. I am a terrible judge of character, I confess, but even granting that, doesn't Obama seem a little lost to you? He is bitchier than bloodthirsty, I think. You can see it as he tip-toes right to the edge of repudiating Wright, but never quite does.
Of course, a Clinton would smile, cut the old man's throat and throw him to the sharks in an instant. But Obama...no. He can't quite do it. He is above that. He lacks the gutter courage of Prince Hal. And Wright, fat, crass lamentable figure that he is, is certainly no Falstaff. But for some reason, probably known only to God, Obama loves him. And he we are trying to make sense of this sordid drama.
Personally, I don't think Obama ever imagined his star would rise so far in the political firmament and so quickly. And he had no conception that he would have to sacrifice so much of himself, whatever that identity might be, to keep it there. And how painful those sacrifices would be.
...
Obama may innoculate himself against further criticism with today's press conference. I am sure the ladies and gentlemen of the press will be more than happy to help him in this regard. But really, he should have clearly and succinctly repudiated Wright in Philadelphia. But he couldn't. He just couldn't. And that is the impression we are left with.
No matter how much money he has shored up against defeat, I can't help thinking the likelihood of him becoming president next year ended today...
I think there is a lesson here for all of us..., Don't... sleep... in church!z-z-z-z-z-z!Huh, wha? oh, aaaa, AMEN!
G_d Damn you, Wadeusaf!
Asked whether the matter should raise questions about his judgment,
Mr. Obama did not directly answer, saying:
“I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency.”
Mr. Obama did not directly answer
---
Surprise!
(on a majority of the questions at the Press Club, neither did his ex-minister, ex-mentor, ex-crazy uncle...)
"Unless you outlaw free speech Wright does not fall into the category of traitor. If you try to make your case on aid and comfort to the enemy you'd be laughed out of court."
I have my copy of the United States Constitution right here - I understand it just fine.
No one is disallowing free speech - traitors can call for God to Damn America any time they wish, but they must pay the price for that treason. Let the Supreme Court decide on what the price will be.
As for being laughed out of court, it depends who is sitting on the bench. Judges like you would laugh me out of court - judges like me would laugh you out of court.
The Islamofascist/terrorist/jihadist enemies of America say "Death to America. Jeremiah Wright says "God Damn America." Our enemies take comfort from this, and to deny it is to fail the third grader test - the common sense test.
And that is really the heart of the problem. Leftists are plenty intelligent, but they lack common sense and they are now unable to tell right from wrong.
Ah, Shropshirelad... you're coming close.
First of all the "victim" status works better when you appear wounded and hurt, don't you think? Were he indignant, it wouldn't play so well.
I've watched BHO in a few places where he didn't have a speech. While eloquent, he does more stammering and is more hesitant when unscripted. And he most certainly does not do well under pressure. We've seen more of that lately.
But he consistently responds to pressure with arrogance. i.e in many debates, abruptly cutting short the press conference, etc.
If you note, this particular "pressure" has left him humble, not arrogant. Not his usual MO
I believe, as a lawyer, he is quite capable of of a performance as a wounded phoenix, attempting to rise from the ashes.
NOW Obama’s outraged. He suddenly sees a new side to Wright after 20 long intimate years.
What a joke.
Go home Obama.
You’re done.
— Posted by Michael (
(if only it were so)
Some of the rhetoric in this argument is a tad overheated. For one thing, Wright's claim to be the voice of the "Black Church" is a pile of crap. If you were to go into one of the predominately black megachurches like for example the "Potters House" pastored by T.D. Jakes; you would hear straight gospel preaching . It might be tinged by prosperity teachings, but not Marxist race baiting like Wright or Calypso Louie Farrakhan expound. If Wright has a spiritual twin it is probably Jim Jones of Jonestown fame. In the People's Temple in San francisco, Jones built a Marxist Death Cult with no Christianity to be found.
The most influential black pastors in the world are not demagogues like Wright, but Africans experiencing real Pentecostal revival that is changing the face of the Third World.
I find Teresita to be annoying, but crank the dildo rhetoric back a notch. Ironically while you were lambasting her; Cracker, the White Power enthusiast snuck in with a broadside. Civilized dialogue doesn't need either The Klan or the Klan with a Tan.
"It might be tinged by prosperity teachings, but not Marxist race baiting like Wright or Calypso Louie Farrakhan expound."
---
Exactly.
Reminds me:
I once saw Rev Ike in the flesh at a gas station.
(He had a Rolls Royce)
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The first attack by the Amalekites occurred immediately after the crossing of the Red Sea, where there was neither any possible further pursuit by Pharoah's remnant, nor any ability for the Israelites to turn back.
That God will have war from Amalek from generation to generation was a warning that Amalek will always be there to contend with Him. As no person lives forever, so no people are beyond extinction. Thus clearly this is a warning about individuals who arise with a particular attitude towards Him.
What happened immediately after that first episode with the Amalekites? Moses had to put down an INTERNAL revolt -- people with attitudes. The episodes are too close for the implication to be overlooked. One who reads scripture should never forget that Amalek was also a great-grandson of Isaac.
All through the period of Judges Sheppard Kings on their drives and foraging tormented the Israelite farmers by trampling farms, livestock and people as if they were human locusts (much worse than your cockroaches). Chief among these were the Amalekites.
The first book of Samual tells of the children of Israel begging Samuel for an army to put an end to the marauding of the shepherd kings and what would be a form of range war.
Time and again Samuel says that "you do not want a king" and that God does not want you to have a king. All to no avail. Once again that warning from Exodus echoes with this paean by Samuel, as he implied that God says "You will never put an end to Amalek."
What followed implies that either God or Samuel could not put up with the whining and anointed Saul who proved the warning true -- just as you have mockingly observed. Although your mocking tone could prove your undoing, you seem not to care. You make it sound as if the Amalekites were the victims rather than the instigators in all episodes. Have you an affinity for Amalekites and not for God dear Tess? Do we need to ask how you feel about Jews and Christians?
The point I was making of Amalekites is that they cannot be of common blood, but of common attitude to be beyond reach as they are.
Statists even as ancient as Saul saw benefit in not ending such threats even were he able. But the Israelites would forever have a King above them from thence on, often to their detriment. God the Creator meant for all men to have free will.
And we in our declining republic are also at risk of our freedoms. Given up to the Leftists and statists who would contend not just with God if they could track Him down, but would erase the very concept of God from the minds of the common man.
Enough for today.
Hewitt points out that Barry now says until yesterday, he did not know Wright thought so highly of Farakahn.
...but he went to the Million Man March with Wright!
"Maybe I'm missing something, but what exactly has Teresita done to merit such crude remarks?"
Trust me, what Tes got today is a fair serving of what she had coming to her for a long time now.
Guys, I appreciate your coments, but I have to try and keep this site rated PG or thereabouts. So I've removed all comments which contain a certain word and this is no reflection on the commenters.
In general it's good to have debate, but I would like to appeal to commenters to keep the discussion free of personal invective and on point.
Also it may help if we personally limited our comments to about three or four per post. I will adhere to very same rules myself. Please feel free to call me out if I violate my own understanding.
So please: on point, sarcasm allowed but no insults, three or four comments per commenter per post. I will keep to those rules myself.
Teresita has wasted our time with about four different personas.
Each one "arguing" as passionately as Barry, or Rev Wright.
(in at the buzzer!)
Perhaps if there is a consensus among a majority of posters that someone brings absolutely nothing to the party except sock puppetry and uninformed devil's advocacy, that person could be disappeared by management, which would negate the necessity for either sarcasm or name-calling. Disappearing such a person would also result in threads shrinking by 30-50%, which streamlining is generally considered to be a Good Thing in the 21st Century.
The smartest move for the RNC, from a political standpoint, would be to exacerbate the cracks in the Democrat coalition.
McCain need only interject anti-Obama Hillary quotes, and anti-Hillary Obama quotes into all future speeches. When called on that he could say "Well I don't believe that, personally. That's what Hillary (Obama) said".
We need McCain to be a divider, not a uniter!!!
Isn't it telling that the disciples of the "post-racial unity" candidate are so vitriolic?
I am stunned that almost no one has considered the possibility that two consumate con men, Wright and Obama, have orchestrated the last few days as a ploy to get Wright off the table in a clean cut fashion. The Wright controversy was destined to fester through to the election if something was not done. Wright has been pointedly hiding out until the Moyers Interview, the NAACP Speech, and the National Press Club Speech in quick succession. How likely is such a succession of high profile venues by coincidence? I suggest that Obama and Wright planned these events so that Obama could dismiss Wright with finality and Wright would disappear into his 10,000 square foot mansion in an almost all white gated community with a five car garage to shelter his Porsche :-). I can picture Obama and Wright sharing a drink, probably Cognac, and a Cuban cigar on a nice leather covered sofa in Wright's expansive living room. They can have a last laugh at all the pundits they snookered along the way.
It IS entirely possible that this Wright-Obama kerfuffle is a scam to do exactly what some of you have suggested. In fact I'd bat there's a better than even chance that's exactly what is in play.
I have friends who are educators and tell me stories all the time of how black mother instruct their children to act dumb, thus qualifying the family for more money.
I've worked at para mutual tracks and the blacks have all the 10% business..if you don't understand speak up and I'll explain.
Food stamp fraud in the black community is legendary as is just about every enterprise known to scam the system. It's a way of life and Barack and Wright are now scamming the electorate to get Obama out of this hole...if need be he'll eventually totally disavow Wright, but that too will be sham.
The Amalakites are an imaginative enemy.
"The incident in Jacob's life which chiefly interests Blake, however, is his descent with his progeny into Egypt. This means that Man has forsaken his emanation Jerusalem, his bride-land, and has fallen under the domination of tyranny and mystery, the Whore whose name is Egypt as well as Babylon...
The Fall is completed when Jacob and his eleven other sons follow Joseph into Egypt, and the Hebrews sink under all the tyrannies of the Selfhood....
when we read of Pharaoh's daughter drawing the infant Moses out of the water of the annually flooded land of Egypt, we know that a new cycle has begun and that a distinction between "Hebrews" and "Egyptians" i. e. men who can be redeemed as opposed to men who can't, is being established...
We now have a new appearance of vital energy, personified by Moses....
the two possibilites(redeemable, not redeemable) are represented in the Bible by the pairings Moses-Elijah and Moses-Aaron, and in the Exodus account, by the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. Here it is Moses and Aaron who are associated, and so the cycle runs it inevitable course, or rather it's undirected and aimlessly wandering course, to the point from which it startd in Egypt. The Jehovah of the Burning Bush becomes the Jehovah of the moral law, hidden in Mount Sinai, and the road to the Promised Land becomes a pathless wilderness....
the symbolism is expanded to include the sequence of events up to the entry into Canaan. This is preceded by the crossing of the Jordan, which marks the same point in the Hebrew cycle that the Red Sea crossing marks in the Egyptian one. As they near their Promised Land, the Hebrews find themselved opposed to hostile tribes and kingdoms, Moabites..Amalakites etc...that all represent what the Philistines have come to represnt since Blake's time, life on its natural plane of conventional stupidity. But though the Hebrews were under a divine command to exterminate all such aspects of the Selfhood, they did nothing of the kind, but merged with them...Canaan, therefore, is Egypt all over again, and the crossing of the Jordan represents a re-entry into Egypt, the mundane shell or cave of the mind. The Jordan is in the Bible more or less what the Styx and Lethe are in Classical mythology. The fact that Moses never entered Canaan thus has a twofold significance. His death outside the Promised Land means that what he represents, the spirit of the Hebrew law or vision of Jehovah, was not good enough; but his death outside the fallen Canaan means that he was redeemed and not rejected by Jesus, which is why he appears with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration."
from "Fearful Symmetry" by Northrop Frye, a Canadian critic
Thus do poets, and their followers, read the word of God.
[b]Father of LSD takes final trip[/b]
April 30, 2008 - 11:50AM
The father of LSD and the first person to experience an "acid trip", Albert Hoffman, has died aged 102.
102!!! geez we'd better start dropping acid again.
"The truth shall set you free"
More Americans have been killed in Philly since 2003 than have been killed in Baghdad in the last five years of the war in Iraq.
If Democrats are so hell-bent by the 4,000 deaths in five years of war on terror, they should be quadruply bent by the 4X as many Americans killed each year in the good ol' USA, somehow especially in areas the Democratic Party has controlled for decades and generations.
If Democrats were never against any of the multiple wars the USA waged in the '90's, and have never solved the incredible murder statistics within their most faithful districts, why did they suddenly become passionately, righteously, proudly anti-war after 9/11?
"The truth shall set you free"
Food stamp fraud in the white community is legendary, as is any other scam one can think of. Most of Vegas for instance is owned by whites, a world class scam if there is one, the scammed being mesmerized by glittzy lights, until the pocket book runs out. Governments, state and local, elected mainly by whites, are into the gambling scam too, big time, with lotto, and they are hooked into a share of the profit from casinos, loath to give it up, having become addicted themselves to the money, scams one and all. Sucking off the weakness of the very people whom they ought to be protecting from scammers.
I don’t think Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination for President. Even if Barack Obama were certain to lose the election and he were the worst presidential candidate imaginable, the Democratic hierarchy will still choose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. The reason is money and votes.
Barack Obama brings new voters into the political process, voters who could change the math of elections throughout the country (at least in university districts). Moreover, he brings in money. Cold hard cash. Barack Obama’s money machine is far bigger than Hillary Clinton’s money machine, and that means he can give generous donations to worthy political candidates. (Some people would call it buying votes.)
For at least part of the Democratic Party, winning elections isn’t nearly as important as getting on the gravy train of campaign donations. For a certain class of political activist, it is better to get paid while losing an election, as opposed to winning an election in a frugal campaign.
Even if the Democratic Party’s leadership knew that Hillary Clinton could win the Presidential Election as an Independent Democrat against both Barack Obama and John McCain, it would still support Barack Obama because he brings the Democratic Party something his competition cannot – MONEY.
I am a white pastor, and have visited dozens of Black churches, have even spoken at a few.
NONE of them were anything like Jeremiah's church. Without exception, every one of them was kindly, very courteous, very welcoming and non-hostile in any way to whites.
That's not all: their Christianity was Biblically conservative. That is to say, the focus was on love, not hatred, on forgiving, not vengeance or resentment.
Wright and his followers claim Black churches are like his. No way! Go visit a few - see for yourself.
Bobal: The Amalekites are an imaginative enemy.
Yes. They must be for scripture to declare them to be first among the nations. And certainly, there are multiple entendres in that one declaration. Do not overlook that it does not say first of all nations, but among.
Again I say: this is not a people or a nation to itself. It identifies people with a certain attitude. They are ones who operate with stealth (first attack was to the rear where the weak, infirm and young are to be found) who will rise to affect how a nation behaves and where it goes. Shepherding. Shepherd Kings still, and that history ain't pretty.
Why do clergy avoid mentioning Amalek and not warn their flocks so they might recognize his traits? Saul's end, too, was not pretty.
Edwin F has an excellent point, the association between Wright and Obama has been too close and too long for Obama to dust him like this. It smells of collusion.
Old neocon--I'm so glad you said that. Really it's kind of music to my ears. I have never been in a black church, primarily because I'm in a lily white state, but have been around to different white denominations. What you say accords with what I would have quessed.
I was in a Hawaiian church once. They made my staid type of get-together seem a little ridiculous. There were some blacks there, a few whites, mostly Hawaiians.
The very last we need in this country is a race war.
There was a movie about a black church a few years ago. Can't recall the name of the movie, but the deal was, they were in a singing competition, and it had an additional plot of this guy that went to the big city, getting kind of on the edge of corruption, had the love interest between him and a good looker...really good movie, maybe it rings someone's bell. That's the way I have imagined black churches to be, and I think it is close to the truth, after reading neocon's comment.
Very funny movie too, lots of good laughs.
It was "The Fighting Temptations"--Beyonce Knowles, and Cuba Gooding Jr, the ad man, went to the big city, came home, of course, to quess who?:)
I liked that movie.
I'm thinking Wright (and Sharpton last weekend to a degree) are replaying Cincinnati 2001.
http://foreignobjectdamage.blogspot.com
That is to say, the focus was on love, not hatred, on forgiving, not vengeance or resentment.
Thanks for writing that, Old Neocon.
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