LIKE IT OR NOT, WRIGHT IS PART OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE TOO
AS hopes Barack talks some more about the reverend Wright. Dick Morris says that Obama should firmly distance himself and it will pass.
Here's my problem with that. You don't flesh out a message of ending divisions by immediately jumping in and going for a Republican-style shunning exercise.
What the bogus "patriots" who are so horribly offended by Wright ought to understand is that the improvement of race relations is not best started by standing outside poor, urban black communities and yelling, "Shame on you!", "Our country is #1", "America is beautiful, no matter what your experience of it has been", "It's all your own fault, liberal swine" and variations of "You are wrong, we are right" set to the hymns of cultural high priesthood.
If Michelle Obama, for instance, can feel proud of her country, in a new way, then I'm welcoming that, on her own terms.
Why the heck should I prejudge and reject the very path of hers - and others, of course - that might bring everyone, all of us, to a new place of goodwill? Why on earth would anyone engage in such cretinous and priggish exercise of being snide about how divisions end, accepting change only on their own (moral?) terms (unless you are the godless Wall Street Journal, who published that sickening piece I noted yesterday).
Having said that, I need to see all of the reverend's speech, not just the snippets were were served up by the national media.
And if you still disagree with me, tell me that I'm just justifying means-by-ends, I still have two words for you: New Orleans.
CONFUSING PATRIOTISM WITH CONSERVATISM, MIXING IN RACE
I've looked at some of the criticisms.
After that, you cannot criticize your country in the name of God. It drives Conservatives wild with rage. zzzzzzzzzz The best recent commentary on this was the Daily Show's takedown of Bush's speech from a day or so ago. It runs something like, "God Loves American because American gives Freedom and Freedom is a gift of God."
Truly, when you hear the GOP flag wavers say, "God bless America", they don't mean that we hope for or ask for a blessing, they really mean, "America, God blessed". Just listen for it. You'll hear it.
