Pastor Wright’s Fantasy World of Hyperbole
It was hard to watch the appearance by Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club and not wonder what sort of person could listen to such poisonous rhetoric for 20 years.
While I’m not fond of Pastor Wright, my experience with “the Wright stuff” has been limited to the various sound bytes and YouTube videos which have circulated, and that’s been quite enough. I have had enough of Wright, and I have not wanted more.
Before I begin, I think it’s fair to point out that I don’t think Obama is responsible for what Wright says, nor do I think Wright is as egregious as Ayers and Dohrn. However, his judgment in having such friends is another matter, and I don’t blame Obama for trying to shed himself of these ties. (And what was this Chomsky clone doing at the Clinton White House, anyway?)
Earlier today, however, I was asked by Pajamas Media to write about this morning’s appearance by Reverend Wright at the National Press Club. Fortunately (so I thought), I didn’t see the email until after the event was over, so I replied that I’d missed it, although I did venture that if I could find the video online I’d watch it and write a piece if it wasn’t too late.
As it happens, it didn’t take me long to find the Wright event on video in six YouTube segments.
Er, now that I’ve watched them all, I should say, six sickening YouTube segments .
20 minutes in, I was just about ready to throw up. The more I watch this malignant man, the less I want to watch. For starters, I find myself unable to stand Jeremiah Wright’s smarmy, sing-songy voice. Now, lest I be accused of racism in the way some have been accused of sexism for not liking Hillary Clinton’s voice, let me say that one of the things I most like about Barack Obama is his voice. He has a pleasant speaking manner, in stark contrast to Hillary’s screechy braying.
I’m no Hillary fan, and I may regret saying this lest it sound favorable to her, but Wright makes Hillary Clinton’s screeching and braying sound almost pleasant.
His supercilious insincerity, and mocking, deriding tone — all while he spews hateful and vindictive far left claptrap — belongs on Berkeley’s Communist controlled KPFA radio, if it even belongs there.
Wright talks about events of hundreds of years ago as if they’re happening right now. His tripe is some of the vilest demagoguery I’ve heard.
As I watched him, it occurred to me that I’d rather be getting a colonoscopy. (Or maybe even watching Ann Coulter, assuming that’s a distinction with a difference.)
But then another sickening thought occurred to me.
What sort of person could watch this crap for 20 years?
Now now, Eric! To each his own. One man’s soothing words of healing are another man’s poisonous rhetoric.
Somehow, I don’t find anything soothing in statements like this:
Reconciliation, the years have taught me, is where the hardest work is found for those of us in the Christian faith, however, because it means some critical thinking and some re-examination of faulty assumptions when using the paradigm of Dr. William Augustus Jones. Dr. Jones, in his book, God in the ghetto, argues quite accurately that one’s theology, how I see God, determines one’s anthropology, how I see humans, and one’s anthropology then determines one’s sociology, how I order my society.
Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means “God with us,” if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.
My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.
And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe.
(More on Jones here; he called Giuliani a fascist, helped Tawana Brawley avoid testifying, mentored Al Sharpton, and provided a platform for anti-Semite Leonard Jeffries.)
This is apparently Wright’s view of American religion. The very worst and most bigoted aspects of the past are treated as if they’re alive today in the form of “the Christianity of the slaveholder.” What’s with the wild cheering he got for saying things like that? As I wondered, the announcer said “the applause and the comments you hear from the audience are not necessarily those of the working press.” Well that’s a relief.
If you can stand to listen, the above (and more) can be heard on Part 3 of the YouTube video. (The rest are here.)
It would be hard to imagine any Jew talking this way about Germans, and the Holocaust is still within recent memory. Wright not only never lived through the stuff he excoriates white America for, he grew up in middle class affluence, with a pastor father and a mother who was vice principal of Philadelphia High School for Girls.
I’ll give a few more examples. (Forgive me if I can’t stand giving too many; I don’t want to spend two days fisking every one of Wright’s utterances.)
Asked to explain his post 9/11 “chickens coming home to roost” statement, Wright claimed the moderator’s answer “nullifies that question” (even though she had only read the question from a list):
You have said that the media have taken you out of context. Can you explain what you meant in a sermon shortly after 9/11 when you said the United States had brought the terrorist attacks on itself? Quote, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
REVEREND WRIGHT: Have you heard the whole sermon? Have you heard the whole sermon?
MODERATOR: I heard most of it.
REVEREND WRIGHT: No, no, the whole sermon, yes or no? No, you haven’t heard the whole sermon? That nullifies that question.
The moderator was simply reading a question from the many which had been submitted. How does whether or not she heard the sermon “nullify” the question, which simply asked what he meant?
Well, let me try to respond in a non-bombastic way. If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq. That’s number one.
According to Alan Colmes, Wright was not quoting the ambassador from Iraq, because the ambassador (Ed Peck) never said that. I’d say Wright nullified his answer.
Another example of the man’s total demagoguery is his response to the questions about Louis Farrakhan:
…I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan anymore than Mandela would put down Fidel Castro. Do you remember that Ted Koppel show, where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro was our enemy? And he said, “You don’t tell me who my enemies are. You don’t tell me who my friends are.”Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn’t make me this color.
OK, I accept it as a given that Louis Farrakhan did not put Jeremiah Wright in chains, nor did he enslave him.
The point is, no one did.
That’s the whole problem with Wright. He’s living in a fantasy world of hyperbole where the most monstrous examples of lynching, torture, and extermination are all attributed to the United States government, and presented as if they are all occurring in the present, and still being lived now by an ever present “we” — consisting solely of white AmeriKKKan oppressors and black victims.
Speaking of “we,” perhaps the worst aspect of Wright’s message was his thrice repeated claim that the criticism of him is “not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it is an attack on the black church.” (Perhaps I’m not keeping up with current events as I should; did someone make Wright the pope of all black churches?)
Of course, in Wright’s fantasy world, deranged conspiracy theories are passed off as truth, even as scientific facts. A perfect example was his handling of the AIDS remark:
MODERATOR: In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?
REVEREND WRIGHT: Have you read Horowitz’s book, “Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola,” whoever wrote that question? Have you read “Medical Apartheid”? You’ve read it?
(UNKNOWN): Do you honestly believe that (OFF-MIKE)
REVEREND WRIGHT: Oh, are you — is that one of the reporters?
I guess she got nullified there too. Asking the moderator (or whoever asked the question) whether they read the Horowitz book is a trick question, and should not disguise the fact that Horowitz is one of the rankest of conspiracy theorists. Anyone who doubts this need only visit his web site, and read stuff like thus:
TODAY’S BIOCHEMICAL WEAPONS, VACCINE, AND DRUG INDUSTRY IS PART OF THE SAME GLOBAL PETROCHEMICAL-PHARMACEUTICAL CARTEL THAT HAS SPONSORED NUMEROUS ACTS OF TERRORISM. THIS LIKELY INCLUDES THE MOST RECENT DEBACLES IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS CARTEL IS A DIRECT DESCENDANT OF THE ROCKEFELLER/I.G. FARBEN MONOPOLY THAT INSTIGATED THE HOLOCAUST.Please stop what you are doing, and link to my publisher’s website at http://www.tetrahedron.org/. Review the articles, news stories, and intelligence reports I have posted to share potentially lifesaving knowledge. You will see that I am not making this up.
All right then? You can’t say you weren’t warned. (And now that you’ve read Horowitz, by Wright’s logic you have now earned the right to ask questions!)
Once again, this assignment has been about as pleasant as a colonoscopy, and while I realize not all things in life are pleasant, at least when they do a colonoscopy they give you anesthesia. (I haven’t had so much as a drink, although after listening to this malevolent clown I need one.)
I guess if Barack Obama could sit through 20 years of Jeremiah Wright preaching when he didn’t think the world’s eyes were not on him, it’s only fair that I watch him when he’s theoretically showing his best side for the press.
Now there’s a scary thought.
What I watched was Jeremiah Wright at his best.
Wow.
UPDATE: After writing this, I learned that a number of commentators are now wondering whether Wright might be sabotaging Obama. (Or “is the whole thing being cleverly staged” to give Obama a Sister Souljah moment?)
Eric Scheie is a licensed California attorney (UC Berkeley ‘78; USF Law School ‘82) currently living in the Philadelphia area. A registered Republican, war-supporting, small “l” libertarian and self-styled “culture war traitor” he writes (often satirically) about cultural issues and politics at ClassicalValues.com.
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56 Comments
1. world » Blog Archive » Pastor Wright’s Fantasy World of Hyperbole:[...] Clark wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt was hard to watch this morning’s appearance by Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club and not wonder what sort of person could listen to such poisonous rhetoric for 20 years. [...]
Apr 28, 2008 - 4:16 pm 2. Dark Helmet:wright is just one of many ‘ persons of influence ‘ in barak 1/2 hussien 1/2 obama. Wait until you find out who some of the other people are that shaped his view. That sob soros has put in 3 losers in the ballot box. Now is the time for revolution.
Apr 28, 2008 - 4:28 pm 3. David Thomson:“What sort of person could watch this crap for 20 years?”
The answer: a very ambitious person. “Barry” Obama is nothing more than a Harvard educated yuppie out to make it. He learned very early that being a bit edgy and “authentically black” was the way to acquire political power. White left-wingers unhesitatingly reject moderate politicians of color. They want someone who pushes the race card. The same, of course, is true for black Democrats. Do you really want the country to get past race? In that case, you join the Republican Party. Obama would easily win the presidency in a landslide if he embraced the views of Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. Only a center right man of color will be elected to the presidency. A left leaning Democrat has no realistic chance. Try imagining the odds of Colin Powell winning the White House. It would be a slam dunk. Obama will be rejected for the content of his character—and not the color of his skin.
Apr 28, 2008 - 4:35 pm 4. pat dugger:PLEASE can’t we just get over it and pay attention to what really matters! I am so sick of all the bull and the hype about this man’s right to free speech. The last time I checked it was still a free country and I don’t believe anyones words reflect anything that didn’t come out of my mouth or anyone else’s. In this country we seem to simply love sensationalism. We buy into the game and if your not asleep at the wheel you can recognize where it has gotten us.
Apr 28, 2008 - 4:39 pm 5. Noga:It seems quite obvious that the man does not differentiate between historical times, causes and effects. For him the past is present and very much alive. His Christianity fails to distinguish between ancient Judea and modern Washington. An extraordinary combination of heated imagination, self-righteous manipulation and having read extensively.
He is more like a mullah than a Christian preacher.
I remember an Iranian friend telling me how Shiite Muslims going to Friday prayers at the mosque would be coming out of the services with tear stained faces, the mullah having re-told them of the martyrdom of Husayn in 680 at Karbala , as if the traumatic event happened the day before, not 1400 years ago. This is a way of keeping the faithful in a state of simmering indignation and grievance, and I daresay controling their minds and hearts.
Apr 28, 2008 - 4:44 pm 6. Olivia:Rev Wright is disgusting! And contrary to Roland Martin and other knuckleheads that kiss his ass. Not all black people are buying what he’s selling. Particularly this black person! The whole gobbledygook about right and left brain is laughable and a testament to the poor state of education and affirmative action. I’m so tired of the Sharptons, Jacksons and this new upstart. Who elected them “leaders” of “Black America”? Did I miss the meeting. Shelby Steele is laughing at home right now.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:01 pm 7. david p:What is wrong with this Country? Jeremiah Wright is a maniac, delusional and for the past 20 years a deeply influential, inspirational escort of democratic front runner Barrack Obama. Are voters in this country that mesmerized by his delivery of the same pack of lies & empty promises. Subversive misdirection has paralyzed the minds of so many, eroding the cognitive dissonance that would normally arise when confronted with the content sermonized by Wright and those around him.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:04 pm 8. buzz:“PLEASE can’t we just get over it and pay attention to what really matters!”
terribly sorry, Pat. Please, dictate to us what really matters. After all, just because the likely Democratic nominee has claimed this nutcake as a spiritual adviser clearly has NOTHING to do with determining anyone’s judgment or character.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:04 pm 9. M. Simon:I blogged the irreverend’s speech at Classical Values – The Devil Speaks.
My take? The irreverend Wright is trying to help his close friend Barack Hussein Obama get elected.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:10 pm 10. Daniel DiRito: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:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:14 pm 11. PapayaSF:Also, Wright keeps saying that the Tuskegee Experiment involved “giving syphilis” to blacks. Untrue. It’s bad enough that the participants weren’t told what they had, and weren’t given penicillin when it became the standard treatment 15 years after the study began, but they were not given the disease in the first place.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:19 pm 12. solidstate:Pat Dugger: No one here (or anywhere else that I’ve seen, and I’ve read a great deal on Wright) has contested his right to free speech. What they _are_ doing is pointing out what he says, and his appearance at the National Press Club (of all places) today indicates that he wants his statements publicized far and wide. And even if he didn’t want that, those statements are entirely appropriate for public scrutiny and commentary. The media went so far as to _invent_ supposed character issues to use against George W. Bush in 2004 (a ploy that led to Dan Rather, among others, losing their jobs). Even if you don’t find Obama’s 20-year associaton with Wright an authentic issue, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t see why others do. Wishing the matter away won’t do much good at this point.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:32 pm 13. Believer:“What sort of person would watch this crap for 20 years?”
And what sort of person would subject his own young, impressionable children to this poison?
If he would show such carelessness with the well-being of his own flesh and blood, imagine the lack of judgment he might have with a nation of people for whom he cares far less.
Zero character. Zero judgment.
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:45 pm 14. stonetools:a) Wright is his own man, not Obama’s trained monkey that Obama can order around;
b) Wright has the right of freedom of speech in America today-which means the freedom to hold and express impolitic opinions.
Both Obama AND Wright have said that wright doesn’t speak for Obama. What could be clearer than that?
What’s astonishing to me is that the press had swallowed whole the right wing meme that Wright is Obama’s surrogate and that Obama should be held responsible for Wright’s opinions. When did either Wright or Obama ever say this?
Apr 28, 2008 - 5:53 pm 15. Maimonatease:Noga: I think you spot on in your analysis.
This is the American black mullahcracy – Wright, Farrakhan, etc. – reasserting themselves and their power. If there is going to be an “important” black man in this country it is going to be one of them, damnit, and no uppity negro like Obama is going to make them irrelevant (as he surely would if he won). But alas Obama cannot play Maliki to their Sadr because that is just not who he is. He is not a leader so much as a soother, an empty albeit golden vessel, a clearly good guy way out of his depth. Even if by some miracle he pulled the ultimate Sister Souljah moment on the bunch of them right now, it might be too late (although not for 2012). The most annoying thing in all of this is how savvy and prescient this makes Bill Clinton look; suddenly his SC comments don’t seem so vile or wacky at all.
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:13 pm 16. ex-democrat:“I don’t believe anyones words reflect anything that didn’t come out of my mouth or anyone else’s.”
so you would not believe that a white person might harbor racist views, even if you discovered he had for 20 years attended Klan meetings in silence? thanks for the excellent example of crass stupidity masquerading behind the condescending voice of exasperated common sense.
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:29 pm 17. The return of Jeremiah Wright, “The Megalomaniac” at The Liberty Preservation Alliance:[...] Scheie has coverage of the Wright debacle over at Pajama’s Media in his article titled “Pastor Wright’s Fantasy World of Hyperbole.” In it he writes: Earlier today, however, I was asked by Pajamas Media to write about this [...]
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:31 pm 18. Michael Canzano:If Pastor Wright is not a “White People America Hating Anti Semitic Africa Allegianced S.O.B. Then what is he ?
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:35 pm 19. Hollowpoint:American Christian Infidel
It should be noted that Obama joined Wright’s church 7 years before entering politics. He didn’t join for political expediency- he wrote that he joined because Wright’s sermons resonated with him. Were the association merely political, he’d have thrown Wright under the bus months ago.
Add in his close associations with the likes of unapologetic radical left terrorist Ayers and his Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii and we have someone with poor judgement at best, and a radical leftist and ethnocentric viewpoint at worst.
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:51 pm 20. Nicolo M.:“What’s astonishing to me is that the press had swallowed whole the right wing meme that Wright is Obama’s surrogate and that Obama should be held responsible for Wright’s opinions. When did either Wright or Obama ever say this?”
Indeed, Stonetools, you’re right about that, but you miss the point entirely. What this shows is that Obama is an atrocious judge of character to have this racist hustler as his pastor for twenty years. Oprah, at least, got out eight years ago. Now Barack is going to have to live that. Too bad for him – and for us. Because racist scum like Wright ruin the possibility of racial healing in this country just as much as the KKK.
Apr 28, 2008 - 6:55 pm 21. Magnus:Yes Pat dugger and stonetools — by all means pay no attention to the racist hatemongering nutcase behind the curtain…..
Apr 28, 2008 - 7:10 pm 22. Justin:Maimonatease:
Why is he a clearly good guy? If I went to a church where the minister shrieked curses about America, curses at black people, and curses at Jews for 2 decades and then allowed myself to be married by that man, and then ran for president and made him part of my staff I would not be a good man. Obama is not a good man either.
Apr 28, 2008 - 7:20 pm 23. Justin:stonetools:
Do you really think that the choices that we make have no meaning? Most people CHOOSE to stay away from racists because to do otherwise reflects on our character. Obama did not stay away from this hard core bigot who works to make every other black person he can into a bigot. Instead Obama embraced a screaming racist for 20 years, TWENTY YEARS, every Sunday, allowed himself to be married by him and made him a spiritual adviser to him as he ran for president. Obama said that Wright doesn’t speak for him. He also said that Wright was a good friend. That says a lot about Obama’s character. Sorry, but Wright doesn’t need to speak for Obama. Why? Because if Wright wasn’t saying things that appealed to Obama, Obama wouldn’t have had such a VERY close relationship with a man who he knew was despicable for over 2 decades.
Apr 28, 2008 - 7:27 pm 24. Eric:Think Manchurian candidate: here on a secret mission.
Apr 28, 2008 - 7:45 pm 25. Believer:Look, we (finally) invited blacks into the tent to live – not destroy the place. Sure, he’s been to Harvard; that oughta sell just as well as his nKorean brainwasher.
Cheers!
What Wright doesn’t realize is that it isn’t the Black church some of us Christians are opposed to, but the Fraudulent church he leads.
For all his highly touted degrees, Wright has no understanding of scripture or the love of God. You cannot preach Christ out of one side of your mouth and hate-filled lies out of the other.
Left in his care, Wright’s hapless parishoners suffer a far more perilous enslavement than any Wright might rail against. I can only hope they break free and learn true liberation.
Apr 28, 2008 - 8:22 pm 26. Tom W.:Wright and Sharpton are sabotaging Obama because he’s more useful to them as a failed presidential candidate than as a president.
If Obama is elected, it proves the U.S. isn’t the racist hellhole that Wright says it is. But if Obama loses, Wright can shout “My brothers and sisters, we have our work cut out for us! Give me more money so I can buy a bigger mansion in an even whiter neighborhood!”
And his idiot follows will say, “Preach it, Reverend! Here’s $100. God bless you.”
Wright’s performance at the Press Club this morning may as well have been scripted by the Ku Klux Klan. He presented himself as every horrific, off-putting stereotype imaginable, like something out of “Birth of a Nation.”
This is no accident. He wants white America to reject Obama. That keeps Wright rolling in cash for the rest of his life.
Apr 28, 2008 - 8:24 pm 27. Matt:This is total bullshit! Any African-American or anyone who is not a white caucasun in America can spout racist bullshit and it is just fine, we should ignore it; however, if a white person says something that hints of racist bias they are the plague. I am tired of this shit! A racist is a racist, the so-called “Reverend” Wright is a BLACK RACIST! SIMPLE to all of you ignorant people. He hates white people….PERIOD. I tell you what MR. (NOT REVEREND)WRIGHT, I did nothing to “YOUR” people. SO quit blaming us white people for your problems of overcoming adversity. Grow some balls and move on. Everybody goes through their own problems in life, the good people learn and conquer…obviously you want to take a shortcut and blame others for your shortcomings. No true Man of GOD (The True ONE – JESUS) would ever utter what you did from the pulpit. May GOD have mercy on your soul. R.I.P.
Apr 28, 2008 - 8:30 pm 28. Justin:Tom W.:
Not buying it. Good theory though. The problem is that Obama knew who Wright was for over 20 years and kept him close by for all that time. Wright isn’t some guy who came out of nowhere to sabotage Obama’s campaign, nor is he doing anything that he hasn’t done for decades. Obama’s campaign was only a smoke screen that the left elites and the media created. There is a saying that you can fool all of the people some of the time and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The media and Obama and quite a few heads of the Democratic party tried to do that last one with Obama. We are now starting to get past all of the time.
Apr 28, 2008 - 8:34 pm 29. cubanbob:People accuse Wright of being crazy, foolish or deluded. Frankly I doubt that he is. The crap he espouses is the snake oil he is selling to a willing buyer. He has done rather well by it. Just like Sharpton and Jackson. That is their gig, poverty hustling and race pimping. Obama winning the Presidency would be very bad for the business. Can’t let ideals get in the way of our wallets. As for Obama, well lets just say he became “black” when arrived in Chicago. Whether or not he personally believes Wright’s sermons, who really knows? He appears too intelligent to fall for that crap which then confirms just how deeply cynical and crass the man really is. Another Chicago machine politician. He can’t let Wright go for fear of offending his base, but needs to get rid of him if he wants to have a chance in the general and the Rev. is not going have him be the elected Black American President and ruin very sweet gig. A perfect shit storm and the Clinton’s will be smeared as well.
Apr 28, 2008 - 9:31 pm 30. Avril:What is interesting is that in many ways Obama is a lot like Bill Clinton but without the cheap womanizing. Smooth talker, great personality and charm, obviously quite intelligent and 100% pure bullshitter. Even has a bit of Hilary in him, Marxist and lacking any scruples but very tenacious. And his wife is what Hilary pretended to be. No wonder the Clinton’s hate him so vehemently, the can see themselves in him. They can’t stand being out hustled by him. Or to paraphrase George Wallace, the first Black President has been out nigged by professional race hustlers.
Reverend Wright has secured himself a gravy train, Obama knows he never really had that much of chance to begin with but now has the perfect foil to blame, the white trash devils, but he is now secure in Illinois politics for life, another gravy train for him and his wife. No matter what happens going forward from here, Bill and Hillary have just gotten the dirty end of the stick. If she wins the nomination she will get all the Obamamaniacs contempt. If she wins the nomination it will be a Clinton crapfest in the media until the election. If by some miracle she wins, Bill loses millions in speaking fees. If she loses, his star power is already diminished along with his fees and she will be vulnerable to a senate challenge. Even McCain is a loser here. If the conservatives rise out of their coma he might gets his wish (and there are signs they are) the presidency but with the added twist of having to deal with a really and truly Republican majority who are going to treat him like a Democrat Lite and who will owe him nothing. A guy who fight the war to win, a congress that will let us keep more of our money and basically not screw up the country.
Dear Lord, let it be.
I have listened and watched the news for two days now, almost nonstop. I tried not to form an opinion of Rev. Wright, wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. But after listening to his harsh words for America and for white men, then having pastor after black pastor affirm that they felt nearly the same. Well, I am of the opinion that black men must hate us. It makes me so very sad. I really thought after so many years, (I am a youth of the 60’s) that we had made some strides in our relationships. This will not bode well for Obama. This too is very sad, because I find myself wondering, does Obama feel the same animosity towards white men and the government that Rev. Wright feels?
Apr 28, 2008 - 10:08 pm 31. david mott:Wright is retired from his church. Obama gave him his one moment on the stage of history and he grabbed it with, as JFK would say “with great vigor.”
Apr 28, 2008 - 10:26 pm 32. Night Owl:He is a showman. He probably hired an agent. A book is surely to be announced. He will profit greatly from his second act.
He thinks he is cute mocking the common sense of most Americas who will never sign up for his brand of anti-Americanism.
He pretends to be a victim standing up for “the black church.”
It is truly sad that those generations of young people who have succeeded from the generosity of his church will be imbued with a hatred for American that will go with them to their graves.
When are we going to learn from the past lessons of Jim Jones type leaders?
Wright is truly intelligent with the playfulness and giddiness of a clown acting up for all of us on the stage we have given him.
Why do we continue to drink his kool-aid?
Why would parents let their children (sitting in the pew, Sunday after Sunday) be the unsuspecting victims of such hatred for America?
America has never been perfect, but its leaders, in the past, have married a healthy skepticism for its faults with a continuing quest to seek solutions for its problems. Americanism is healthy because it is continuingly evolving.
Wright has robbed the children in his congregation of the right to be free from their pastor’s determination to foist a hate-America dogma onto an unsuspecting generation of young Americans.
What kind of leaders will emerge from this congregation?
So disappointing that Obama did not have the judgment to recognize how offensive his chosen spiritual advisor’s views would be to most Americans; and to not see, as Nicolo M. said, how detrimental these views are towards the racial healing in his country.
And how inept of the Democratic party to not see this controversy coming long before pushing this unseasoned man forward as their nominee. They have created a mess and have no one to blame but themselves.
If Obama loses, it will indeed be due to racism; the racism spewing forth from the likes of Wright, race-baiters like Sharpton, and their misguided followers. The more they bellow, the more it will shock and disgust moderate Americans, making it even harder for a person of color to become President. Which is, of course, in the interest of the race peddlers.
If Obama loses, it will be because indulging in the poison of bigotry, anger and resentment, or even just pretending to indulge, is ultimately counterproductive to achievement; unless you happen to be the one selling the poison.
Apr 28, 2008 - 10:55 pm 33. Tom W.:“But after listening to his harsh words for America and for white men, then having pastor after black pastor affirm that they felt nearly the same. Well, I am of the opinion that black men must hate us. It makes me so very sad.”
Not me. I don’t care. I’ve done nothing to deserve their demented hatred, so they can cram it. I know tons of African and Caribbean immigrants who love this country, who came here and prospered, and who laugh at the native-born blacks whining and seething about how awful their lives are.
I knew a Nigerian who walked across the Sahara to get here. During the Rodney King hoopla, he told me that it reaffirmed the greatness of the U.S. because the entire country was in an uproar over a single police beating. Where he came from, the cops and the army slaughtered whoever they wanted, and nobody cared.
So, no white guilt here.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:45 am 34. stuart williamson (dragonfly)y:Jeremiah makes a big point that he is a pastor, not a politician. Wrong.
He is a Marxist polemicist using Christianity as a cover, with a Black Liberation hook to ensure a large, well-paying following. He can live like king or demigod without having to put up with the hassle of politics. He is an excellent role model for an eloquent Socialist with political ambition.
Bill Ayers is a Marxist professor, specializing in instructing on how to proselitize in sheeps’ clothing. He is quite frank about it. Go to his blog site, which displays a RedStar rising over a slim arc of the globe.
Obama is beyond comfortable with them, for they are indeed his mentors and guides to achievement as a politician who knows he must conceal his Socialist faith.
He may be well educated but how smart is a politician who initiates a campaign for the presidency of the United States without foreseeing that his Marxist ties were certain to be uncovered and having a defense plan in place against that day?
Obama invented himself and now believes his own rhetoric. His career in politics will be brief and inglorious.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:59 am 35. Dodgeblogium » Wright @ the National Press Club:[...] piece on PJM about the whole nutty [...]
Apr 29, 2008 - 3:50 am 36. Bob Miller:Wright needs to get both sides of his head examined. Meantime, his many nutty fans in the left political community and its African American subsidiary ought to be shut out of public office. Mature adult voters, step up and do your duty.
Apr 29, 2008 - 5:18 am 37. tanstaafl:Reverend Wright is beginning to look like a buffoon.
The crapola he spewed over the weekend at the NAACP function about right brained (blacks) and left brained (whites) should have sent the audience’s toes curling.
Yesterday, at the National Press Club, he piled on “America’s sins” by blithely claiming we sold Saddam the “biological agents” he used on his people. Saddam used chemical agents to slaughter the Kurds, VX, Sarin, Tabun…possibly Mustard gas, in a chemical cocktail. Most of Hussein’s purchases, biological and chemical, were made in Europe. A Dutchman has even been convicted of knowingly supplying Saddam with deadly chemical agents. Also, Saddam had some domestic manufacturing capability.
Wright’s defense of Louis Farrakhan is indefensible. Black brother or no black brother, how could you be an authentic man of God and make excuses for such a despicable human being ?
Apparently, Wright got away with spewing outrageous claims at his congregation for so long, checks and balances are irrelevant and reality has flown out the window.
The more I see him, the dumber he looks.
Apr 29, 2008 - 6:16 am 38. Dark Helmet:Maybe it’s time you all realized that there is no such thing as an
” african American ” race.
Either you are an American or not. I don’t think wright could make this any plainer.
Put it in perspective and the picture becomes very, very clear.
It’s God BLESS America Mr. 1/2 & 1/2. Anyone else here have the nerve to speak the truth about who obama really is ‘race’ wise?
Apr 29, 2008 - 6:33 am 39. tanstaafl:More of Reverend Wrong’s hyperbole, issued in service to his “America is the Devil” (and chickens are coming home to roost) agenda
We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home.
Setting aside that Bill Clinton’s bombing of this facility was very likely a débacle, the plant was hit at night and, reportedly, 10 people were injured, 5 seriously.
Apr 29, 2008 - 6:41 am 40. M.E.:This diabolic Rev. Wright reminds me of a passage from Revelation of St. John:
Apr 29, 2008 - 7:52 am 41. Rosie:“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (20, 1-49).
Wright says that Farakkahn is not his enemy …. he did not make me this color. Who made Wright this color? Who is Wright’s enemy?
Apr 29, 2008 - 8:38 am 42. dan:Wright provides, as Obama has exploited, an opportunity to talk about race in this country, but there are apparently none courageous enough in the commentariat to seize it as it is, instead using it to reiterate the same farcical resentment-saturated rhetoric that mires its intended beneficiaries in the pathologies that truly “keep them down.” The fact is, we have public education in this country. White people who grow fat on Cheetos cannot be healthy and cannot blame their malnutrition on a racial or economic conspiracy. Any individual who wishes to understand his world must learn a basic curriculum of skills and knowledge, without which he cannot understand the signs, cannot operate the machines, cannot navigate the legal relations – this is true whether he is a Ukranian peasant in 1938 or a bureaucrat in the Sultan’s court in 1710 or a cobbler in Guangdon during the Southern Tang period. If such an individual chooses instead to play video games and hang out on street corners, they will not be competent in their or any society, except perhaps in a tribal hunter-gatherer society successful enough to support non-contributing members, in which case these members will probably be slaves in any case. If you want children – the wild uneducated raw human animals who must be guided and nurtured and disciplined into subjects or citizens – you must parent them; although a certain amount of the adult is inherent in the child in the quantity Personality, the adult will be childlike unless he is guided toward adulthood. A good way to achieve this is by having two committed parents who raise the child over the course of human being’s long developmental period.
These are basic strategies that must obtain under any political system or any historical circumstance. If instead a group of people is allowed in large part to continue to avoid these responsibilities, they will simply become people who are incompetent. They will rely on superstition to fill the holes in wisdom and explain away their incompetence, which they do not understand. They will produce criminality, which in reality is just a function of assholery (criminality is not a result of maltreatment; it is a result of the absence of the nurturing required to loose the bonds of egotism – a person who is not taught this will simply more likely commit violence or fraud against his fellow beings, to whom he will attribute insufficient regard). They will become the subjects of more competent people, upon whom they will depend, and who must control them, because they will remain quasi-wild, which is to say, Childlike.
All this is self-evident, and should be said aloud, as Cosby and his partner pyschiatrist are saying it allowed. The Wright-Obama moment ought to be seized – as Obama sort of seized it in his Selma speech – as an opportunity to say it. They basic message should be, instead of conspiracy theories and socialist bullshit, this:
“This country has been for 40 years at least as free as it’s gonna get for you all. You can do, and do do as you like, to the extent that anyone can do as they like. The law is on your side; the public sentiment is on the side of your happiness. You must acknowledge that no one, not even the ‘dominant race,’ could engage in certain behaviors and succeed – it is simply not possible. I see black people in all positions of commerce and government, education and entertainment, industry and law enforcement. I have black bosses and go before black judges; I am taught by black teachers. I am governed by black legislators and black executives. I live next to or near black families. I study with black students. I listen to music by black people. I watch black athletes, who make millions of dollars. My opinions are in part administered by black intellectuals and media personalities. My curriculum through my entire educational career has dwelt significantly upon black personalities and the civil rights movement, to the exclusion of other subjects. Frankly, it’s time you people shut the fuck and acknowledged that you are in the mainstream, and the and the injuries you suffer are OVERWHELMINGLY SELF-INFLICTED. The first thing you should do, if I may be so bold, is to send these demagogues back to Africa, where the injustices you guys rave about are being committed by black, against black people. Otherwise, IF you are rejected, it is because you are acting like assholes. Snap out of it! It’s all in your heads.”
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:15 am 43. Dark Helmet:Damn Dan….. you should be a preacher, but it sounds like it would be a step backward. Excellent presentation! Any chance of you running for office?
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:45 am 44. Bruce:Wright does not speak for the black churches. You will never hear this garbage from T.D. Jakes, Creflo, Bishop or Bill Winston just to name a few. Also JESUS put himself on the cross for you, me, the whole world. That is way he said, “forgive them FATHER for they know not what they do” he also said “The SON of man MUST suffer these things”. JESUS is about Love, Forgiveness and salvation. So I forgive Mr. Wright for his words but I must ask, Where is your forgiveness “Reverend”?
Apr 29, 2008 - 9:59 am 45. Bilbo Baggins:To Bruce:
You ask: Where is your forgiveness “Reverend”? Rhetoric question! The devil doesn’t forgive, only hates and curses.
Apr 29, 2008 - 10:51 am 46. smg45acp:To the people that keep saying that Wright’s comments do not reflect on Obama, let’s just change the story around a little.
If any white Republican belonged to a church, even just visited a few times, where hatred against Jews or blacks was ever preached, even by guest speakers, we all know that the MSM and all liberal commentators would electronically crucify the Republican candidate.
So why is any Democrat immune from the same criticism?
And if that Republican was stupid enough or bigoted enough to go to such a church he deserves to be kicked out of the party and never be elected to any position.
Apr 29, 2008 - 11:50 am 47. Bruce:Bilbo Baggins,
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:08 pm 48. Ciscokid:That was meant to be rhetorical but this guys not the Devil, he’s just another bigoted ignorant confused lost soul with a microphone. Unfortunately these people are dangerous to the people that listen to them. Jesus said if you pray and hold something against your brother then it does you no good and if you do good works and have not Love in your heart it profits you not (this is paraphrasing of course since the bible isn’t in front of me at this time) JESUS is the Way and the Light and GOD is Love, these are the messages that need to be taught.
Someday hopefully soon, people who are being guided by ludicrous anti-American rehtoric, will have it dawn upon them who’s “really” holding them back.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:10 pm 49. weSwinger:To Michael Canzano and others, Wright is not an infidel, but a heretic. Too bad there is no policing mechanism in mainline Protestant churches to clearly identify and appropriately excoriate heretics. Now you can see why the Roman Catholic church is so serious about that task. These people can be pernicious and dangerous corrupters of youth and the body politic.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:27 pm 50. tanstaafl:Nice diatribe, dan
The quick excuse for black on black brutality in Africa (or anything else going on, past or present, on that continent) being, of course, that the vestiges of “colonialism” are the root cause.
And that the guy running Sudan (Omar al-Bashir) who has actually hired people to kill many inconvenient “too black and not enough Muslim” souls in his own country is just a victim of white oppression.
Just as Reverend Wright will not condemn the heinous Louis Farrakhan, so none of these dissembling blamers can find an unkind word for Robert Mugabe, either.
Bottom line, whether you’re talking Reverend Wright, Farrakhan’s Muslim Brotherhood/Nation of Islam (or the view of George Clooney, for that matter), it’s all America’s fault, wherever and whatever “it” might be.
There may be validity to the idea that the Reverend Wright is such a jerk and self-aggrandizement junkie that he is willing to use his own current notoriety to even throw Barack Obama under the bus.
Apr 29, 2008 - 12:45 pm 51. Bilbo Baggins:To Bruce from Bilbo:
Revelation of St. John: “and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands” (20). I believe in God of Love. I agree with you. I know that hate and ignorance are destructive for all living beings. Obama, Wright, Farrakhan (and many others like them) are worshippers of the beast that “had received his mark upon their foreheads”. I don’t feel hatred for anyone but I think that to fight Evil is a duty of every man who believes in God. Excuse me for my poor English: I am not American, but like Bilbo I fought also against the forces of darkness in the country where I was born.
Apr 29, 2008 - 1:10 pm 52. Bruce:Bilbo,
I agree with your comments. What saddens me is to see the reaction of those in the audience cheer on this hate from the pulpit. We are taught to listen to the ministers and throw out what does not line up with the word of GOD and the stuff this guy preaches is not of GOD. There is an evil in this man’s heart and unfortunately the person who had 20 years to help show him the error of his ways either kept his mouth shut or agrees with the message. Keep on fighting the good fight Bilbo Baggins.
Apr 29, 2008 - 1:37 pm 53. Believer:Oh, what wonderful comments I’ve read here. I’ve got an errand I’ve got to run, but could someone comment on the “narcissism” we’ve heard lately as it applies to Wright?
I’ve been thinking how it applies to Obama as well. And at first I thought it was more “malignant” in Wright, but perhaps it’s actually worse in Obama. With Wright, it’s obvious; with Obama, it’s been more successfully hidden. All Wright seems to need to feed his ego is attention and approval. Obama needs more: the most powerful position in the world.
Obama spoke in the slowest, most halting manner today before the press as he finally threw Wright under the bus. We knew he would finally have to do it. It was halting, IMHO, because he was taking the greatest care to hide his true motivation: self-interest. He doesn’t want to reinforce the (correct) perception that it is politically motivated.
Self is all the narcissist cares about. And that explains many (if not all) the decisions (poor judgments) Obama’s made for as much of his life as I’ve studied.
Apr 29, 2008 - 2:15 pm 54. dan:thanks guys
. the narcissism? this is my take.
genuine insight is as rare as egotism is pervasive. but there is the salon and its accoutrements. the salon is the smart set. people want to be in the salon. they acquire the accoutrements in hopes of admission. the purpose is to gratify their egos, not achieve insight. when met with success, it threatens to become narcissism. the subject believes they wield the authority insight confers.
what are the relevant accoutrements here? 60s soft socialism and the particular decadence attending the civil rights victory. from MLK Jr. we get Malcom X and Elijah Muhammad, whence Louis Farrakhan and Wright. from freedom and discipline we get license and fantasy. the popularity of the views, however inherently idiotic, provides the salon. but we also have the victory of the 60s in the universities, where the victors exploited the university’s previous, earned reputation for excellence and truth – now they have the universities, and therefore truth.
obama has all the credentials and therefore all the accoutrements. but these accoutrements, never mind their glamour, are like dorian gray – beautiful and seductive, but vampiric and ghoulish. this is decadence. and it slipped into decadent because it is in reality narcissism. it is parasitic, not symbiotic. the “reconciliation,” for example, posited by Wright is obviously not a reconciliation – the reconciliation has already taken place, it continues to take place, we live in actual fact in a constant attitude of racial reconciliation. but the conflict is preserved in the black and post-60s intellectual imagination, kept alive by those who require them for the inegrity of their decadent acoutrements, without which they would suddenly realize they are not in a salon, there is no private heroism, their is no glamour. their narcissistic little odyssey of social-heroism-by-affiliation would (probably) collapse. and then they would simply be – bourgeois, capitalists, Americans. the establishment.
just look at Wright – the guy is from a middle or upper-middle class community in Philadelphia. he served in the marines. and then he went to college and divinity school and found that his blackness Really Meant Something. it made him An Apostle. his color was the vindicated stain of injustice corrected. he was the slave in Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, where the slave is wiser and more moral than the master, and is destined to win, has even already won because of this superior insight his mere position confers on him.
and so with obama. it is self-evident that the only thing he is interestd in “transcending” is George Bush and what he represents. clearly his blackness serves him in the same way it serves Wright and others who believe that their race is beatifying – who use the language of reconciliation and overcoming only as a rhetorical stick with which to beat whitey.
obviously this tendency is not as pronounced in obama, but that is the basic aesthetic-intellectual center of gravity in my opinion, and its basis is narcissism.
honestly, i bet obama’s a pretty good guy. it’s not as though most of my friends aren’t like this in one way or another. in fact i probably am too. but i just don’t want this guy to president. this kind of stuff screws up the better natural emotional reaction to things like Islamist aggression and fiscal responsability. and the fact is one of our biggest domestic problems is exactly this kind of race hucksterism, and its biggest victims are black people, for too many of whom it apparently provides too much of an intellectual temptation.
Apr 29, 2008 - 4:06 pm 55. Bill Bradley:In electoral politics, it’s not what you “know,” it what you can “show.”
Apr 30, 2008 - 7:08 am 56. Believer:Thanks, dan, for taking the time. As with your earlier comment, alot of food for thought, and much, if not all, true.
My particular distaste for Obama came when I discovered he lacked empathy – was a “user” of people – a hallmark of the narcissist. First evidenced in his state senate years – getting Emil Jones to put his name on legislation that others had worked on for years. Repeated again in the US Senate when he took to the microphones to take credit for an immigration bill (he hadn’t even attended any of its formulative meetings). This lead one US Senator to remark, “There are work horses in the senate, and there are show horses.”
Uglier still are the examples of putting his own children in Wright’s pews and throwing granny under the bus. Now he divorces Wright. It’ll be interesting to see how this one sits with the Rev. There’s a guy who has some power – and a very loud voice. Not so with his own flesh and blood.
I just don’t know if he is the one motivated to achieve all this – and in such a short span of time – or if someone or something much larger is behind it all.
He is without accomplishment (beyond education, which may have been achieved without much work on his part anyway – he’s certainly bright enough). And I read his year as Editor, Law Review was the least productive ever. Maybe we can be comforted with the thought that he might not achieve anything should he actually be elected. But his absolute blindness to evil is no comfort whatsover.
What I can’t figure out is if this is just a tale of an uncaring (except for “self”), marginally harmless narcissist, or something far more destructive yet to be realized.
Apr 30, 2008 - 1:12 pm