Mr. Wright has suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism on other people and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.
- New York Times
OUR KNEE-JERK RESPONSEOf course, it's true that one cannot demythologize the American myth so much as an election message. But the role of a truth-teller, a prophet, isn't to make such considerations. They just call it like they see it. Pundits ought to, as well.
Ross calls him an "SOB" and says, "We know who and what Wright is". Ever-excitable (?) Andrew reaches for his Paglia palette with this, "his open public embrace of Farrakhan and hostility to
the existence of Israel Zionism, make any further defense of him impossible. This was a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism, and self-regard"
I'm just enough of a pirate to step out onto the plank and ask if they cannot do a little more explaining, please. When did the radical middle drown? or get drown out?
First, let's take a moment to notice that
Wright's prepared remarks for the NPC are fine, even laudatory. Like
anyone facing the Press with over-confidence, he got chewed-up in the Q&A. It's not the press's fault. It's just a back-and-forth that's best left to professionals, even when it is a sensible forum (and it was not, for this).
JUST THE FACTS, AND SOME QUESTIONS1. Why do you think the Tuskegee experiment
doesn't show the capability of the governments to do most anything?
When it was declassified not so many years ago that the government did experiments on its own service members, what does that show, except a capability to weigh a greater good against a lesser one, just as it did when the CIA probably turned a blind eye to drug trafficking, so that it could finance anti-communist paramilitaries.
So, isn't our real frustration that Wright didn't say, "No, I don't believe is it true for AIDS, because there is no evidence for it. However, we have to remain skeptical of our government."
In other words, we're upset he didn't have handlers and one, consistent message, right? The rest are style-deductions, true?
Wright gets flayed for making fun of questions/questioners, with some justification, while Addington raises it to whole
artform, in a far more brazen flip-off. Who's the bigger problem in America, I wonder...
2. The missing referent for "chickens coming home to roost", yields Eureka! for everyone.
Everyone has interpreted this every which way, including, now, Wright himself (and "those who prey on hate", superbly put by Obama).
So, aren't we really just frustrated to the point that we want to stop dealing with the phrase, which the Bush Administration never dealt with either, peddling instead their bogus GWOT conceptualization and fear-mongering that got them the 2004 election, w/ and a slew of FedSoc court nominees? Isn't our easiest way out just to shoot Wright for having said it, rather than strain our brain?
Wright's sermon does not treat chicken's roosting as a justification for terrorism. It condemns violence, namely wanton violence. The hapless "clarification" at the NPC also does not justify "terrorism", but he is not clear that all violence is not terrorist. Wright IS clear that God does not sanction all kinds of violence, especially wanton violence.
Yet, so many are frustrated (in America) when we cannot use violence - VDH, Krauthammer, many more, get apoplectic, even (can you imagine them in a state like Switzerland or almost anywhere except in the USA with its 'military options'? Yet, Wright is the one who is egregious.). Using the logic that condemns Wright, we can infer that VDH is of the opinion that God has blessed almost every act of U.S. violence in its history, based on the outcomes of U.S. intervention in the world, which is just one shade better than might-makes-right.
They almost studiously refuse to see any political dimension to the problem of bringing "moral order" to the world, via the American military or otherwise. They are the epitome of the spirit of the phrase, the victors write history. Given their posture is so at risk with the Iraqi over-reach (opposed even by the Vatican), we can also add, 'no matter how long it takes'.
In fact, while the Administration uses OBL quotes to their advantage, they ignore that OBL said after 9/11, (paraphrase), "If they choose to call us terrorists [instead of jihadis or whatever else is on his wacked mind], so be it. We use violence because that is what they understand ...". From this, if nowhere else, one can see a political dimension to America's problems. One may even say a 'moral-political' one, too.
The underlying problem is that the Bush administration has failed to articulate a global strategy for countering the threat from Islamic extremists, so we're left stuck debating in the same fashion the country was in the months after 9/11, right on up to the 2004 election. That has to be the bigger failure, by far.
3. Louis Farrakhan
He's part of the nation's political untouchables caste. What can one say? You cannot touch the untouchables. Whatever his good works, however he takes to being "denounced and rejected" on National Television (which was pretty good, this time, by the way), he can never change classes or atone for being ... untouchable. He's worse than a leper - he's a political leper.
The "neocon philosophy" cost the USA over $1 trillion and counting.
Jack Abramoff (member of "Cult" of Reagan foot soldiers, College Republicans Cult) basically conspired with the GOP ruling elite to screw the public interest and got America involved in deeply unpatriotic acts of human rights abuse.
What the fuck has Farrakhan ever cost the American taxpayer? Yeah, he's pretty freaky, but on the list of grave American worries or louts, he doesn't rate high on many objective measures...
SO WHAT THE HECK ARE WE REALLY DISOWNING?
Wright's cooptation of Obama for his own agenda - his assertion that Obama's distancing from him is insincere - requires, in fact demands a response from Obama
- AS
Okay.
I think that is possible, without flushing the truth in the counter-narratives, truths that need to be talked about (probably in ways that Wright is not suited to, any longer). Wright simply mangled the distinction between politicians and pastors, one that even theocracies, like Iran, maintain, right? So, he's not Billy Graham. Eh.
Except how much is really about Wright's unashamedly "black" demeanor, as he might put it (and others disagree)? How much is really about what we would otherwise excuse as eccentricity, most likely, if what he was talking about weren't so racially charged, so basically
uncomfortable for so many who just 'don't want to hear it or deal with it'?
Which brings us, at last, to this shameful display. I respect Mort Zukerman, a lot, but shame on you for this over-the-top rubbish:
[+/-] Show Full Post...
[+/-] Hide Full Post...
