dfarr Wrote:[quote=perunapower]
No, you're just trying to rationalize his rantings.

Also, Huckabee is only a social conservative, which is half the battle.

Please tell me how I can be rationalizing someone's opinion when I say it is blatantly inexcusable and wrong. I think it is intelligent to hear first-hand what was said and in what context, rather than take what CNN or Fox News spoon feed us. I'll make my own determinations on what was said, thank you.

Huckabee is a social conservative and we are discussing a social issue. Racial issues are social issues. So what's your point?

BlazerUnit: Well done.

Perunapower: Thank you for showing the capability to think.

To the rest of you: Thanks for reminding me why I don't visit this area more often.

worth quoting in full. On Wright's Looney Toon conspiracy theories from the pulpit:

So much for the 'post-racial' candidate

Quote:"I'm sure," said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries and strawberry shake sound profound, "many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed."

Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree, flown-the-coop nuts. Unlike Bill Clinton, whose legions of "spiritual advisers" at the height of his Monica troubles outnumbered the U.S. diplomatic corps, Sen. Obama has had just one spiritual adviser his entire adult life: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, two-decade pastor to the president presumptive. The Rev. Wright believes that AIDS was created by the government of the United States – and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Rev. Wright knows the truth. "The government lied," he told his flock, "about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied."

Does he really believe this? If so, he's crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years.

Or is he just saying it? In which case, he's profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDS is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you'll know that it's within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you're told that it's just whitey's latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it's out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior.

Before the speech, Slate's Mickey Kaus advised Sen. Obama to give us a Sister Souljah moment: "There are plenty of potential Souljahs still around: Race preferences. Out-of-wedlock births," he wrote. "But most of all the victim mentality that tells African Americans (in the fashion of the Rev. Wright's most infamous sermons) that the important forces shaping their lives are the evil actions of others, of other races." Indeed. It makes no difference to white folks when a black pastor inflicts kook genocide theories on his congregation: The victims are those in his audience who make the mistake of believing him.

The Rev. Wright has a hugely popular church with over 8,000 members, and Sen. Obama assures us that his pastor does good work by "reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS." But maybe he wouldn't have to quite so much "reaching out" to do and maybe there wouldn't be quite so many black Americans "suffering from HIV/AIDS" if the likes of Wright weren't peddling lunatic conspiracy theories to his own community.

Nonetheless, last week, Barack Obama told America: "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community."

What is the plain meaning of that sentence? That the paranoid racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright are now part of the established cultural discourse in African American life and thus must command our respect? Let us take the senator at his word when he says he chanced not to be present on AIDS Conspiracy Sunday, or *** **** America Sunday, or US of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service. A conventional pol would have said he was shocked, shocked to discover Afrocentric black liberation theology going on at his church. But Obama did something far more audacious: Instead of distancing himself from his pastor, he attempted to close the gap between Wright and the rest of the country, arguing, in effect, that the guy is not just his crazy uncle but America's, too.

To do this, Obama promoted a false equivalence. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he continued. "A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street." Well, according to the way he tells it in his book, it was one specific black man on her bus, and he wasn't merely "passing by."

When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest Cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded: "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life." In Philadelphia, Sen. Obama topped that: Greater love hath no man than to lay down his grandma for his life.

In the days that followed, Obama's interviewers seemed grateful for the introduction of a less-complicated villain: Unlike the Rev. Wright, she doesn't want God to damn America for being no better than al-Qaida, but on the other hand she did once express her apprehension about a black man on the bus. It's surely only a matter of days before Keith Olbermann on MSNBC names her his "Worst Person In The World". Asked about the sin of racism beating within Grandma's breast, Obama said on TV that "she's a typical white person."

Which doesn't sound like the sort of thing the supposed "post-racial" candidate ought to be saying, but let that pass. How "typically white" is Obama's grandmother? She is the woman who raised him – that's to say, she brought up a black grandchild and loved him unconditionally. Burning deep down inside, she may nurse a secret desire to be Simon Legree or Bull Connor, but it doesn't seem very likely. She does then, in her own flawed way, represent a post-racial America.

But what of her equivalent (as Obama's speech had it)? Is Jeremiah Wright a "typical black person"? One would hope not. A century and a half after the Civil War, two generations after the Civil Rights Act, the Rev. Wright promotes victimization theses more insane than anything promulgated at the height of slavery or the Jim Crow era. You can understand why Obama is so anxious to meet with President Ahmadinejad, a man who denies the last Holocaust even as he plans the next one. Such a summit would be easy listening after the more robust sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

But America is not Ahmadinejad's Iran. Free societies live in truth, not in the fever swamps of Jeremiah Wright. The pastor is a fraud, a crock, a mountebank – for, if this truly were a country whose government invented a virus to kill black people, why would they leave him walking around to expose the truth? It is Barack Obama's choice to entrust his daughters to the spiritual care of such a man for their entire lives, but in Philadelphia the senator attempted to universalize his peculiar judgment – to claim that, given America's history, it would be unreasonable to expect black men of Jeremiah Wright's generation not to peddle hateful and damaging lunacies. Isn't that – what's the word? – racist? So much for the post-racial candidate.

Well done Steyn...

Question: Can any of you provide YOUR OWN THOUGHTS about Obama's speech? I know, that would require you either to watch it or read it in full, but I would greatly applaud any of you who can cite lines from his speech (posted above by BU) and give your criticism and/or analysis of it.

Sophandros Wrote:Question: Can any of you provide YOUR OWN THOUGHTS about Obama's speech? I know, that would require you either to watch it or read it in full, but I would greatly applaud any of you who can cite lines from his speech (posted above by BU) and give your criticism and/or analysis of it.

I have no time to read the rantings of any politican...They are ALL immoral power mongers that seek to use the force of government to steal my wages and promote their brand of virtue....Voting for your slavemaster doesnt eliminate the fact that you are still a slave.

Sophandros Wrote:Question: Can any of you provide YOUR OWN THOUGHTS about Obama's speech? I know, that would require you either to watch it or read it in full, but I would greatly applaud any of you who can cite lines from his speech (posted above by BU) and give your criticism and/or analysis of it.

My thoughts? He may not be a Black Panther, but he used those types to get to power in Chicago. Now he's on the national stage, where "blackness" doesn't get him elected, and he wants everyone to turn a blind eye. Yeah...don't think that's happening. Change the colors then talk ****, Soph.

...and if you want me to delve into quotes from his books, I can do that as well. I assure you, they've been dissected from page to page and there's not much in there that's different from the liberation theology.

....but what do I know, I'm just a typical white guy.....who DOESN'T move to the side or tense up when I see a black guy coming my way.

First off, I loved this speech. I thought it was one of the most thought-provoking speeches on racial problems I've heard.

Quote:I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

I personally listened to the Audacity to Hope speech, and for those interested I posted the links in one of my prior posts. There wasn't a trace of anti-white, anti-America, or whatever other anti's you can think of. It isn't fair to judge Rev. Wright's entire pastoral career on 30 seconds or 60 seconds of speech. Was it stupid? Yeah. Was it factually wrong? Of course. Was it offensive? Very much so. I believe that the offensive portions that have been plastered on YouTube and all the national media programs were not the norm in Trinity UCC.

Quote:And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

If you don't think it's possible to go to a church where you don't disagree with at least some of the political viewpoints of the church, I will be more than willing to provide myself as an example. I go to a very politically conservative church, but yet I am a liberal-leaning moderate. It frustrated me when I heard one of the associate pastors tell the congregation that we should vote for the only man of God running in the election, Mike Huckabee. It was also frustrating when the same man said it was a shame that a man of God, Mike Huckabee, was so far behind in the polls. Politics and religion can be deeply intertwined. No one will ever find a church that they believe everything that is said in the church.

Quote:And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Some people see this as a illogical comparison, but I don't. You can easily disown family. Many people have been disowned or have disowned some in their family. People are multi-faceted and we can't truly judge someone's character off of a 60 second snippet. Rev. Wright is nuts politically, but gives excellent powerful sermons, in my opinion. He may also be a good listener and excellent at restoring faith, which may have drawn Obama close to him.

As for his grandmother, how is this throwing her under the bus? He is saying she is still a good person, not worthy of being disowned, in spite of having said racial stereotypes at times. It's ridiculous to think that we should immediately disown everyone we know that says something hurtful, offensive, or wrong. If we were to do that, we would have all disowned everyone we know.

Quote:Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

The Faulkner quote is a little off. It should read, "The past is never dead. It’s not even past." It's from Requiem for a Nun. It's meaning isn't lost in Obama's misquote. The past resonates and shapes who we are today and who we are to become in the future. The same concept applies macroscopically; America's past shapes what she is today and what she will become tomorrow.

The sore subject of civil rights and discrimination isn't one to be forgotten. It is our past, like it or not. Many African-Americans are very untrusting of whites because of Jim Crow, segregation, and racial intimidation, especially those who lived through it. Many whites see minorities getting what they see as free handouts when all they receive for their hard work is a slap in the face is frustrating.

I completely agree with Obama when he says it is time to quit squabbling over our differences and solve, actually find a good solution, to the dire problems facing our country: health care, Social Security, Iraq, the economy (especially the mortgage crisis), education, our oil dependence, and environmental problems. Yeah, we're different. As Dick Cheney said it, "so." These are national problems that deserve national attention. Divided we fail. United we go a long way to fixing our ailments.

RebelKev Wrote:

Sophandros Wrote:Question: Can any of you provide YOUR OWN THOUGHTS about Obama's speech? I know, that would require you either to watch it or read it in full, but I would greatly applaud any of you who can cite lines from his speech (posted above by BU) and give your criticism and/or analysis of it.

My thoughts? He may not be a Black Panther, but he used those types to get to power in Chicago. Now he's on the national stage, where "blackness" doesn't get him elected, and he wants everyone to turn a blind eye. Yeah...don't think that's happening. Change the colors then talk ****, Soph.

...and if you want me to delve into quotes from his books, I can do that as well. I assure you, they've been dissected from page to page and there's not much in there that's different from the liberation theology.

....but what do I know, I'm just a typical white guy.....who DOESN'T move to the side or tense up when I see a black guy coming my way.

You should try to support your statements, Kev.

BTW, how've you been, anyway?