Patterico's Pontifications

4/13/2008

Jeremiah Wright, In His Words (Updated)

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 6:24 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is on sabbatical from his position as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ but he used a congregant’s eulogy to share his views on America and its Founding Fathers:

“The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor of Barack Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ, has kept a low profile since some of his sermons landed him in the middle of a political firestorm.

But on Saturday Wright made his first extensive public remarks since the controversy began as he paid tribute to his friend, former appellate judge R. Eugene Pincham, a congregant at Trinity since 1987.
***
And while Wright made no mention of terrorism, he did revisit the topic of America’s mistreatment of blacks, saying America’s founding fathers “planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic,” and adding that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson unpatriotic,” he said to the cheers of the congregation.”

Jeremiah Wright could be channeling Fred Phelps when he claims God will punish America for its sins. Still, I guess now we know that Wright believes bigotry (and, by extension, affirmative action) will never end. After all, if racism is in America’s DNA, it must be here to stay.

In addition, Wright also had a few choice words for Fox News and its broadcasters:

“Escalating into full-preaching mode, Wright thundered, “Fox News can’t understand that. [Bill] O’Reilly will never get that. Sean Hannity’s stupid fantasy will keep him forever stuck on stupid when it comes to comprehending how you can love a brother who does not believe what you believe. [Pincham’s] faith was a faith in a God who loved the whole world not just one country or one creed.”

At that point, congregants nearly drowned Wright out with a booming standing ovation.

Wright also referred to Fox News as “Fix News.”

You can listen to the audio at the Chicago Sun-Times website.

UPDATE Fox News adds:

“Rev. Jeremiah Wright told a congregation in Norfolk, Va., on Sunday that reporters sneaked into a private funeral service a day before, in which he blasted America’s founding fathers for slavery and white supremacy and received standing ovations for attacking FOX News for covering his anti-American sermons.

Barack Obama’s retiring pastor delivered a sermon at Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church, where his late uncle had been the pastor, about overcoming trouble. The public appearance was his first since news broke that the Democratic presidential candidate’s pastor frequently rails on the United States.

“Some troubles that come up in your life come up out of nowhere,” Wright said. At the end of the two-hour-plus service, about two dozen ministers gathered around Wright and his daughter to pray for them. One of the ministers asked God to give Wright courage as “the world tries to demonize him.”

Wright reportedly also said that Thomas Jefferson partook in “pedophilia.”

— DRJ

203 Responses to “Jeremiah Wright, In His Words (Updated)”

  1. What’s so striking about this is that it was some person’s eulogy.

    Answering critics is not how to remember someone. Granted, I’m sure the decedant’s family is in line with this, and what can you expect from this guy, but it’s still crass and selfish to talk about Fox News’s commentary at a eulogy.

    Wright drives a porsche to his mansion in a white neighborhood, though he talks about not pursueing even escaping even a lower class lifestyle. He is a supremely selfish human ebing, yet another Al Sharpton, totally unconcerned with the hate he has created, the racism he has instilled, the destruction he represents. He is the opposite of our great memory of MLK. He is in love with Chicago’s dirty power.

    And Obama saw fit to attend this hate-fest for 2 decades, and infected his own child with its evils, because he couldn’t stand up to his crazy wife.

    Jem (4cdfb7)

  2. Jeremiah Wright could be channeling Fred Phelps when he claims God will punish America for its sins.

    How inappropriate.

    Who was Pat Robertson channeling when he openly called for Hugo Chavez’s assassination?

    steve (eca7d1)

  3. Steve, I think the comparison is apt in both cases, though it’s certainly a lot more appropriate for Wright, who actually CHEERED 3000 innocent people being murdered as “chickens coming home to ROOOOOOST!!!!!” with a huge freaking grin on his face.

    The ONLY reason i can think of that anyone is tolerating this imbecile is because they have no choice if Obama is to be respected at all.

    Phelps (a huge democrat fundraiser as well), is certainly worse, but it’s this exact same illness. You don’t cheer horrible suffering in the name of your religion. That’s wrong. Mmmmkay?

    Jem (4cdfb7)

  4. I want more Wright. Lots, lots and lots more. Please, pretty please, Reverend Wright, keep on talking.

    nk (6b7d4f)

  5. If those Union Soldiers would have known what their descendents were in for as a result of their sacrifice, would they have made the sacrifice?

    j curtis (c84b9e)

  6. Who was Pat Robertson channeling when he openly called for Hugo Chavez’s assassination?

    Well, me, for one…

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  7. If those Union Soldiers would have known what their descendents were in for as a result of their sacrifice, would they have made the sacrifice?

    I wonder what Wright thinks of the illegal, immoral war against the south?

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  8. 5

    Adding context for my reply at 5. It’s in response to this statement:

    “…adding that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson unpatriotic,” he said to the cheers of the congregation.”

    I guess the Civil War just wasn’t payment enough for the likes of Wright. The hate he preaches would most likely be directed at the whites that his congregation is familiar with. Illinois was a free state and there are more whites in Illinois who lost ancestors fighting to free the slaves than there are Illinois whiteys who owned slaves.

    j curtis (c84b9e)

  9. #3: Jem, your interpretation of Rev. Wright’s remarks is clearly based on the ten second version of the sermon, rather than the 30+ minute version that was actually delivered. That one carries a vastly different message than what you’re honing in on. If you’re interested to know what Rev. Wright actually said, why don’t you check out that very quote you mentioned, with a little more context?

    (And if you’re not interested in doing that, maybe you could at least stop misrepresenting his views? I’m sure Wright has no shortage of theological and political views that you could disagree with, without unfairly characterizing the man.)

    I’m pretty sure I could take just about any politician – or preacher – and pull out single sentences from years of speeches and sermons in order to make him look like a jerk. But integrity demands better. In my view, disagreements with political enemies should be based on content, rather than caricature.

    Peace,
    TR

    Tom (48689b)

  10. Tom:

    I couldn’t get past Wright’s gratuitous mention of “the American War Machine” and the “selected President” (all in the first 40 seconds!) before I had to turn that clown off. Would you be so kind as to specifically tell us what part of the clip we should be watching, because if I watch the whole thing through, well, that’s 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back and I don’t want to waste it on the likes of Jeremiah Wright.

    JVW (835f28)

  11. Pastor Wright,

    Your comments do nothing to reconcile the races/religions in this country.

    Shame on you!

    John (75eb70)

  12. Jem, your interpretation of Rev. Wright’s remarks is clearly based on the ten second version of the sermon, rather than the 30+ minute version that was actually delivered.

    So where’s the other 20+ minutes left off the YouTube video, Tom?

    Paul (4ca58a)

  13. I wonder what Wright thinks of the illegal, immoral war against the south?

    A phrase possibly worthy of copyright consideration.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  14. *grins* Darn unilateral act of imerialism by the North!! How DARE they impose their will against the innocent people of the South, and how DARE they occupy the lands of people that didn’t want them there!

    Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec)

  15. Wright reportedly also said that Thomas Jefferson partook in “pedophilia.”

    And Wright used the word “pedophilia”?

    How long before we see 5-second sound bites of Condoleezza Rice ridiculing America’s
    “birth defect” posted?

    steve (fb9abb)

  16. Steve, look up the word “reportedly” in a news context.

    Paul (4ca58a)

  17. Yeah steve, reportedly means “something we attach to a news story with actual facts in it, but that is complete unsubstantiaed BS, to try and sucker people into believing that it is factual also.”
    Not a Wright fan but adding “reportedly” stuff to the story is lame.

    EdWood (b623a9)

  18. I guess this is not the sermon that demonstrates the “loving” Wright Obama speaks of.

    Patricia (f56a97)

  19. #18, No, Patricia, still waiting for that one…perhaps when he speaks at the NAACCP’s Annual Fight for Freedom dinner April 27th, eh?

    Dana (59f0fc)

  20. steve & EdWood,

    Is the Fox News report wrong regarding Wright’s comment on Jefferson and pedophilia? If so, I’ll correct it.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  21. DRJ, this was from Radio Iowa:

    “Carver was a Simpson student who went on to Iowa State College and became Iowa State’s first black faculty member in 1894. “George Washington Carver is named after a slaveholder. George Washington held slaves. God set the captives free. Thomas Jefferson raped a black teenager — an oppressor — but God helped her maintain her sanity. I get amused every time I see something about the love story between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. She was 15. That’s called pedophilia. We condemn Michael Jackson for it, but we honor Thomas Jefferson,” Wright said. “God is a righteous judge.”

    http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=8B357985-F529-BF65-7BAF88ED4AA91F0B

    There is an audio (runs 45 mins) of the speech at the link.

    Dana (59f0fc)

  22. nk#4 Yes. The more the man talks (even in the extended, non Fox-News version) more and more people are going to realize that even if they UNDERSTAND where he is coming from (or at least sympathize),that their tolerance for blamers (Certainly NOT confined to Rev. Wrights racial group by any means)is wearing thin or has worn out.
    His representation of scripture as wisdom that God gave us and that holds true even without direct divine interference (ie. he’s saying the concept of blowback was already in the bible ages ago) is more sophisticated than other preachers blaming 911 etc. on “homos and abortionists” but it all boils down to the same thing, put in “imperialist whiteys” or even just “imperialist Americans” for “homos and sinners” (if you want to leave out the racial angle) and you still end up at the same place. Add the bizarre mannerisms of the pastor as he speaks and .. well….maybe people will conclude the guy is just a little unhinged.

    EdWood (b623a9)

  23. I should add that the Jeffferson comment was from a speech he gave in January at Simpson College. If he said it this weekend, it was apparently already in his repetoire.

    Dana (59f0fc)

  24. Dana, and DRJ, “reportedly” means that they DIDN”T fact check their statement and were covering thier butts with semantics. If they had to do that, then the statement shouldn’t have been in the story. Good for Dana for running it down, maybe they should hire her.

    EdWood (b623a9)

  25. She was 15. That’s called pedophilia.

    no it’s not. At best it’s called ephebophilia and only if the fixation remains on adolescents.

    I guess my own paternal grandfather was a “pedophile” since he married my grandmother when she was 15.

    Darleen (187edc)

  26. I’m the one who used the term “reportedly,” not Fox News. Here’s the section from the Fox News report:

    “First reported by The Chicago Sun Times, Wright told mourners at the funeral that Thomas Jefferson, who partook in “pedophilia,” would also be considered unpatriotic these days because he wrote, “God would punish America for the sin of slavery.” He also quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said that the U.S. has a “congenital birth defect.”

    I summarized the Fox News report for brevity and added the word “reportedly” because I couldn’t find a reference to pedophilia in the Chicago Sun Times article. I don’t know for sure whether Wright referred to Jefferson and pedophilia, but I don’t have any reason to think the Fox News report is wrong.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  27. Darleen – I was going to speculate whether Wright, as a former muslim and butt buddy of Calypso Louis, would be offended if someone called Mohammed a pedophile.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  28. DRJ – Did he call her Condoskeeza Rice again today?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  29. But if Sally Hemings had gotten pregnant, Obama would have wanted her to be able to get an abortion w/o notifying her parents.

    ROA (dfea95)

  30. You know, there was like a solid hour of Obama answering questions about religion on CNN this evening. Remember him? Obama? The guy running that is running for President? The guy that Republicans keep complaining ‘we don’t know anything about?’ Are you even trying to learn anything? You sure gobbled up George Bush’s religiosity, but don’t want to give Obama a chance to explain his, in his own terms? I am not even a little bit religious, but Obama’s Christianity sounds a whole lot better than Bush’s Christianity.

    Did anyone see this? You’d really rather keep panting over this Wright guy? Do you people thing that hyping this shit up for weeks and weeks means you’re staying informed?

    Levi (76ef55)

  31. Darleen – most people use “pedophilia” to mean sexual attraction to anyone under current legal fortification age.

    The part of me that likes using words precisely agrees with you, but…some how, I don’t think you, or others who wish to debate the point, would use ephebophilia to describe the Priest scandal, even though it is accurate. (Actually, homo-ephebophilia, but that’s far to much preciseness.)

    Please correct me if my impression is incorrect?

    Foxfier (74f1c8)

  32. Levi.

    That guy looked to this guy as his spiritual leader for two decades.

    For those of us who “bitterly” cling to our guns and faith, that’s important.

    Foxfier (74f1c8)

  33. Levi, we’re with you. Everyone loves the ‘prepared’ Obama. It’s transparent, smooth and one dimensional. The real Obama is . . . well, keep watching.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  34. That guy looked to this guy as his spiritual leader for two decades.

    For those of us who “bitterly” cling to our guns and faith, that’s important

    And that’s infinitely more important than what Obama, the guy that is running for President, actually has to say about religion, is that what you’re telling me? You’re gonna let Wright completely make your mind up about Obama, and not even let Obama get a word in to defend himself? Are you one of the ones that always complains that ‘we don’t know anything about Obama?’

    Levi (76ef55)

  35. Levi, we’re with you. Everyone loves the ‘prepared’ Obama. It’s transparent, smooth and one dimensional. The real Obama is . . . well, keep watching.

    So now getting prepared for giving political speeches on national television is some big strike against a Presidential candidate? How does that work? What the hell do you mean by ‘one-dimensional?’ Do you even know? Why is ‘prepared’ Obama not the ‘real’ Obama? They can’t be both? A guy can’t inadvertently offend a much of over-sensitive babies when he’s being asked hundreds of questions every day month after month?

    Levi (76ef55)

  36. Do you even know?

    Yes, Levi. I do know. And soon you will too.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  37. Well why don’t you clue me in? Jesus, why don’t any of you actually ever say anything?

    Levi (76ef55)

  38. Wright isn’t skipping any chances to prove he is a racist hate monger.

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  39. Levi wrote: Well why don’t you clue me in? Jesus, why don’t any of you actually ever say anything?

    I can’t believe an Obama supporter wrote that!

    L.N. Smithee (f20168)

  40. Jesus, why don’t any of you actually ever say anything?

    This is how I feel about Barry. Everything that comes to light just peels away another layer of veneer. The messiah is quickly becoming the mess. There’s so much around him that’s wrong. His wife. His pastor/mentor. His dealings with Rezko. His playing the race card when convenient. His accolades as a uniter when his remarks and record show he’s a divider. Makes me cheer for the Clintons . . . because he comes across as the entitled one.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  41. Obama, the guy that is running for President, actually has to say

    Yes. Actions speak louder than words.

    If someone says they love blacks, immigrants and Catholics, but goes to the KKK every week, I’ll believe that they are lying.

    Foxfier (74f1c8)

  42. Levi, I’ll say something specific: first, even if Obama doesn’t share any of Wright’s hatred and racism, the fact that he was willing to tolerate it and support it and expose his children to it for twenty years is bad enough. Second, it’s hard for any reasonable and objective person to believe that anyone would tolerate that kind of hatred unless they had some sympathy for it, and the fact that Obama denies it is not very revealing. He needs white and Jewish votes so of course he’s going to deny it.

    The only reasons that anyone would continue to defend Obama are either that (1) they are partisan hypocrites who really don’t care about racism and hatred except when they can use the accusations to hurt Republicans or (2) they just hold blacks to a lower moral standard than they do whites and don’t think black racism or hateful conspiracy theorizing is a big deal.

    Which is it for you?

    Doc Rampage (01f543)

  43. This is how I feel about Barry. Everything that comes to light just peels away another layer of veneer. The messiah is quickly becoming the mess. There’s so much around him that’s wrong. His wife. His pastor/mentor. His dealings with Rezko. His playing the race card when convenient. His accolades as a uniter when his remarks and record show he’s a divider. Makes me cheer for the Clintons . . . because he comes across as the entitled one.

    Do you ever watch Obama actually talk, or do you just wait to hear it second-hand from your little conservative internet community? Why does every single one of your have the exact same gripes about Obama? All this tertiary, he-said/she-said gossipy unproven bullshit speculation is the only thing you people seem to care about, I don’t see anybody actually taking the time to refute his arguments or ideas about how he would lead the country, or even trying to understand his arguments or ideas. The way you all seize on the most insignificant little detail and pretend like you’re some masters of critical analysis just blows me away. You’d call yourselves savvy news consumers for this behavior? Politically informed Americans? You’re a bunch of True Believers keeping your eyes closed and your sticking your fingers in your ears.

    Levi (76ef55)

  44. keeping your eyes closed and your sticking your fingers in your ears.

    You don’t understand your candidate. He’s spending his own money to correct or amend his _____ , fill in the blank. His past, his comments, his inconsistencies.

    It’s like the Oval Office version of white-out.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  45. Forgive me, I’m from the Midwest, and I had so many reasons to be enraged by Wright’s comments that his 9/11 crack tended to get equal or less of my attention.

    How does that clip play in New York? I realize that it would take a lot of votes to tip that state Red, but I’d think that clip would make the blood boil of many New Yorkers.

    SAM (d671ab)

  46. Levi, surely even you can’t be that dense. Do you always take what politicians say at face value?

    Eric (884ea6)

  47. Th sad fact is, Wright the Wrecking Ball is just a small cog in a very large machine.

    Also, I’m with commenter nk. Let the Ball keep swinging!

    Lastly, Wright’s infamous ‘garlic noses’ and Jesus’ cricifixion as a ‘public lynching Italian-style, also came in the course of a eulogy.

    Remind me not to ask this guy to speak at my funeral.

    Can The House of Obama Survive the Wright Wrecking Ball?‘Racsim, Inc. Keeping Hate Alive in the Black Community

    TheMadKing (7c6738)

  48. Ah, I screwed up my last post. here’s the links:

    Racism, Inc. Keeping Hate Alive In The Black Community

    Can The House of Obama Survive the Wright Wrecking Ball?

    Sorry about that, Chief!

    TheMadKing (7c6738)

  49. You don’t understand your candidate. He’s spending his own money to correct or amend his _____ , fill in the blank. His past, his comments, his inconsistencies.

    It’s like the Oval Office version of white-out.

    That’s rich. ‘I don’t understand my candidate’ because I don’t want to engage in petty schoolgirl gossip with you. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

    Levi (76ef55)

  50. Suppose a Caucasian presidential candidate said all the popular politically correct things but had taken his family to white supremacist meetings every weekend for the last 20 years. Suppose the group issued DVDs with the leader blaming HIV on blacks from Africa.

    How would that person be treated in the MSM?

    Actually, there is a potentially relevant precedent: David Duke. I am no advocate for that man, but he was treated far differently than Obama has been.

    Why would that be?

    jim2 (6482d8)

  51. I am suddenly curious as to whether Levi is a meaningless pseudonym, or are we dealing with a Jewish man/boy who exhibits a breathtaking level of self-deception? Here’s a hint if it’s the latter – the brothers who still march don’t wan’t your type around anymore.

    rhodeymark (e86321)

  52. #10: JVW, you wanted to know where to begin? Start at 3:16 – “I heard Ambassador Peck…” In fact, here’s CNN’s Roland Martin on the context of that sermon if you’d rather read about it than watch it.

    #12: Paul, Youtube has a video length limit of 10 minutes. If you’re implying that the rest was willfully withheld, I would point out that the “controversial” part of that sermon is included at the center, with context before and after the soundbyte provided. Don’t you think that if there were other controversial elements of that sermon, the cherry-pickers would’ve gleefully added them to the list?

    Tom (48689b)

  53. Levi, you say we should listen to Obama–and what he actually says. The sound clip that folks are excited about is exactly that–a recording of what Obama said to a bunch of rich white folks on Billionaire’s Row in Pacific Heights in San Francisco–where the 400 attendees paid $2,300 each to hear the Obamessiah. The house was Ann and Gordon Getty’s mansion–he of the Getty Oil Fortune. And Obama was trying to explain to these rich white folk just why the ignorant rubes in Pennsylvania are the way they are. He wasn’t “misqouted”–he was recorded. And yes the people he was denigrating have a right to be pissed off at the arugula eating condescension involved in that statement.

    I can understand how he got there; the elite university/elite law school/law review/Editor in Chief route steadily strips away any contact with “ordinary people” or even “typical white people”. Been there and done that except for the Editor in Chief part. It’s a pyramid that means your social contacts are limited to similiar folks in a very narrow circle.

    I’m not a big fan of John McCain–but his service as a squadron commander of VA-174 meant he had to rub elbows with some very ordinary people–the enlisted men and petty officers who really make things run in the Navy. That exposure means that he’s never going to make the sort of arugula eating mistakes that Obama can’t help making. (That doesn’t mean he won’t make other mistakes–but he’s not going to condescend to “ordinary people”. He knows better. Those “ordinary people” can do very extraordinary things and deserve respect.)

    Mike Myers (31af82)

  54. Mike Meyers –

    Historically, politicians simply denied having said or done certain things, or bleated “out of context”. It was up to the MSM to pursue such incidents. Thus, the politicians that were favored by MSM held key advantages. How else could words said to rich folk in CA get back to non-rich folk in PA? How else could the “Wright stuff” get out to all potential voters?

    Politicians have had to learn how to deal with the instantaneous availability of audio and video of things they say and do, and also the things their representatives say and do. Furthermore, the presence of the web and outlets like YouTube have reduced the ability of MSM to play gatekeeper on such.

    My point here is that some politicians have learned the above slower than others, and some of their supporters seem to have learned it slower still.

    jim2 (a9ab88)

  55. I still don’t understand what context could possibly make Wright’s remarks OK. Hatred is hatred; bigotry is bigotry.

    Rob Crawford (6c262f)

  56. #42: Doc Rampage writes:

    …The only reasons that anyone would continue to defend Obama are either that (1) they are partisan hypocrites who really don’t care about racism and hatred except when they can use the accusations to hurt Republicans or (2) they just hold blacks to a lower moral standard than they do whites and don’t think black racism or hateful conspiracy theorizing is a big deal.

    Which is it for you?

    Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of creating a lefty version: The only reasons that anyone would continue to support John McCain are either that (1) they are partisan hypocrites who really don’t care about religious bigotry and hatred except when they can use the accusations to hurt Democrats or (2) they just hold fundamentalist Christians to a lower moral standard than others and don’t think conservative Christian bigotry is a big deal.

    Both of these statements, while entertaining, are wrong for the same reason: they’re false dichotomies. You probably actually have another reason for supporting John McCain than either of these two, and similarly, I have other reasons for supporting Barack Obama than either of the two you offered above.

    In each instance, our support for our chosen candidate does not somehow mandate that we be pigeonholed into false dichotomies like either of these.

    But nice try.

    Tom (48689b)

  57. Oh, geez, Tom. The Hagee crap?

    When you can put McCain in Hagee’s church for 20 years, when you have him donating tens of thousands of dollars to Hagee’s church, when you have him calling Hagee a “mentor” and giving him top billing as an advisor, you’ll have a point.

    Until then, the comparisons are apples to fruit bats.

    Rob Crawford (6c262f)

  58. Based upon the comments made about “flyover country”…you know, that area of the country where “small town” people live…the patchwork quilt of precisely who Sen. Obama is, what he REALLY thinks and believes,…becomes crystallized and peeks through the carefully crafted cover constructed to keep from getting too close to his true self.

    “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, … And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” (Sen. Obama on BILLIONAIRES ROW in SF.)

    There appear to be a couple people who wish to discuss things in more detail. Fine.

    WHERE is Sen. Obama’s critique of Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Meeks, Rev. Otis Moss, the Nation of Islam, “clinging” to antipathy to people who aren’t like them?

    He had 20 years to make such a statement. His silence is appalling. And revealing.

    For two decades he embraced the con job, deceit, hatred and bile of a man so despicable…he told men, women and CHILDREN…that white people created a virus to kill blacks.

    For 20 years, he sought “spiritual mentoring” from a man who told men, women and CHILDREN that “people who weren’t like them”…were trying to destroy them, harm them, kill them. Yet…not a peep out of him to suggest that “clinging” to such a notion was wrong, damaging…nearly insane. Instead, he wrapped himself in the cloak of hatred, bile, antipathy and bitterness…and used it as cover for street credibility.

    Pretty words and lofty speeches…sanitized, scrubbed, watered down and reverse osmosis filtered…are intended to NOT reveal more than they are intended TO reveal. Only an enabler of hate, only an apologist for cowardice, only a hypocrite of the highest order would suggest that there isn’t a problem of epic proportions in the contrast between stereotyping a hundred million white people you don’t know and ascribing to them characteristics which you denigrate…and the appalling silence, and worse, the alibis and horrifying embrace of the raging racists you know intimately.

    How do you muster the gall to opine about the flaws and frailties of strangers, when you lack the moral courage to confront the demonic lies and racist slanders of your inner circle?

    Before you seek to heal others, learn to heal yourself.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  59. #55: Rob Crawford, I think that willingness to divorce context from words and deeds is a dangerous, slippery slope that will leave nobody safe (consider how sexual harassment laws would work in a context-free environment, for one).

    If you’re skeptical as to how context might change things in this instance, why don’t you begin by earnestly engaging some of the available material to that end?

    Now let me be the first to admit that I don’t personally care about the context in which John Hagee made his remarks, so I’m not going to spend a bunch of time trying to seek out full understanding and context of this man. However, you also won’t see me disparaging him in the meantime.

    Most politically-minded folks on both sides, myself included, frequently fall into double-standards: okay for me but not for you, my candidate got quoted out of context, but yours is a LIAR, etc. The truth, however, is almost always just a little more complex than any of the the rest of us care to worry about. It’s damn inconvenient for the blogosphere, but may be better off for public discourse in the longrun.

    Tom (48689b)

  60. j curtis @#5 asked:
    “If those Union Soldiers would have known what their descendents were in for as a result of their sacrifice, would they have made the sacrifice?”

    Yes! Because it was the right thing to do.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  61. PS – didn’t see your #57 comment before my last one.

    I agree that’s a bad comparison. The main point is that engaging in false dichotomies is flawed.

    The comparison in my mind wouldn’t necessarily be Hagee/Wright, but perhaps Hagee/Farrakhan – in that both deal with an endorsement coming from a controversial figure. (Obviously, Farrakhan is more controversial in this case, which is probably why Obama rejected him categorically, while McCain didn’t feel the need to distance himself from Hagee.)

    Tom (48689b)

  62. we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents.” (Michelle Obama, in South Carolina)

    This particular worldview, is from a woman who went to a church and brought her children there, to sit and listen to a DIVISIVE, MEAN, ANGRY, LYING, SLANDERING, rage…that was intended to GUIDE BY FEAR… a congregation of cynics…too willing to stand in complacency and cheer the “blame the white man” rhetoric for 20 years.

    If this woman ever once saw the hypocrisy and inane duplicity of pointing a finger at the white world and ignoring the very same behavior in their own back yard…it surely never showed up in her thesis at college. If ever there existed a couple that could not see the forest for the trees, it is the Obamas.

    The America they see, is based upon tired, trite, and shopworn propaganda…foisted upon the world by our MetaStasisMedia and throughout their many tentacles. This cartoonish caricature of “white middle America”…in which everyone who doesn’t “cling to absurdist notions of Christianity, pompous declarations about intelligence levels of the masses, slanders against entire regions of the country”, is subject to incessant attack.

    The subscribers attracted to this ideological cesspool are part of the brainwashed, indoctrinated, echo chamber of leftist pap. They are peer pressured into a blind acceptance of sweeping generalized notions that cannot withstand scrutiny. But they are repeated so often, they act as the Big Lie.

    ANYONE…who disagrees with your premasticated leftist pulp…is “ignorant”, not intelligent, racist, closed-minded, not very deep, unhip, likes guns, believes in fairy tales (like religion), is simple-minded and not worthy of respect.

    In other words, they are mean, slothful, and guided by fear.

    The puerile lemmings who attach themselves to this indoctrination then shout down any attempt at reason or rational debate. They have been peer pressured into wanting so desperately to be thought of as part of the “good crowd”, they act like fawning pre-teens desperate to sit at the “cool kids lunchtable”. Like 7th graders they insult and revile everyone who doesn’t “fit in” with their little kiddie cult. And they block admission into their “clubs”. Hollywood, Academia, the deadwood media, wire services, the Alphabet News channels, …the Democratic party.

    They are terrified of open debate, so EVERY element of those clubs is closed off, cordoned, hermetically sealed and the kiddie cult is kept from being tainted by rational thought.

    They screech and rage against anyone or anything that seeks to bring balance to the debate. Fox News, talk radio, non-leftist bloggers, the entirety of the Republican Party.

    This is a crowd that likes its ideology free from examination. They like their hypocrisy unexamined. And they like to trash their own country, becomes THAT is the act that gets them into the club in the first place.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  63. “I was not raised in a religious household. For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.

    However, in her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well.
    This spirit of hers guided me on the path I would ultimately take. It was in search of confirmation of her values that I studied political philosophy.”

    Yet, Sen. Obama seeks out the brand of religion that seeks to blame, seeks to hate, seeks to revile, seeks to insult, seeks to slander, seeks to divide. Of ALL the religious institutions that Sen. Obama could have embraced…he chose the one that was based on Marxist principles, anti-American values, hatred of an entire race of people, anti-Semitism, …the weekly spilling of bile and venting of spleens.

    He embraced an anti-America worldview. He embraced a blame white America worldview. He embraced hatred instead of healing. He embraced rage instead of rationality. He embraced finger-pointing instead of forgiveness. He embraced slander instead of solutions.

    Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.202-4 Oct 1, 2006

    When a white teammate expresses empathy for young Barack, feeling awkward and clumsy after being taken to a black party after a basketball game, Sen. Obama wanted not to heal his friend’s awkwardness, he wanted to punch him.

    When given the opportunity for healing…Sen. Obama sought rage.

    In fact, he found that it was best to engage in duplicity with white people, they responded to someone who was articulate and polite and it would serve him well to not be upfront with them.

    This duplicity is the very hallmark of his candidacy. When the cloak slips, when the cover allows a glimpse, when the carefully crafted shroud is peeled back…the Marxist, anti-American, elitist, fringe leftist appears beneath the surface.

    When the tools used for duplicity drop…what is left…is the guy who pals around with Ayers and Dorhn…people who set off bombs in the Pentagon. Violent, virulent, anti-American Marxists.

    The evolution of young Barack into Sen. Obama is one of a steady entrenchment into hard leftist notions, anti-American values, and his worldview of America has been shaped by some of the most virulent anti-American forces within our borders.

    Ayers is a smirking, smarmy, sneak attack proprietor…Rev. Wright is a bombastic flame-thrower of hatred and bile, “Frank” was a Communist antagonist, and Michelle is a Magnet School, Ivy League, millionaire …perptetual victim.

    The prism through which Sen. Barack and Michelle Obama see our nation, sets them so far outside the fringe left…that it is little wonder they think and say the things they do. Behind closed doors, with the Billionaire Brie set…”typical white people” are gun toting, Bible-thumping, mouth breathing Neanderthals.

    He won’t lose a single vote from the arrogant and puerile who harbor this ignorant conceit themselves.

    While it is myopic and dangerous for anyone to hold these views, it is more dangerous to believe that they haven’t been indoctrinated in enough people to take root. This country has been propagandized from within for over 40 years. That propaganda has taken hold and we are on the brink of putting a man and a woman in our White House who have been immersed in it, bathed in it’s bile and hatred…nearly all their lives.

    They see an America that needs to be cleansed. FORCED to accept that worldview. They see an America through a prism of hard leftism and sweeping slanders.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  64. Conservatives are a bunch of hysterical, overly-sensitive, thin-skinned ninnies. They spend all day tossing insults at liberals and calling into radio shows and madly blogging away about how ‘tough’ we need to be and how we need ‘tough’ Presidents, but then get all indignant when someone calls them on all their wedge issue bullshit. You idiots do cling to your religion, and your guns, and it makes you vote against your own economic interests, and that’s just the way it fucking is. And you’re bitching about Obama being condescending? Did the poor little rural Christians get their little feelings hurt? Oh, you poor little things!

    Levi (76ef55)

  65. Conservatives are a bunch of hysterical, overly-sensitive, thin-skinned ninnies. They spend all day tossing insults at liberals

    Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

    Steverino (e00589)

  66. Hey Tom:

    As a sign of good faith, I went ahead and listened to Wright beginning at the 3:16 mark that you suggested. Here are some of my reactions:

    1. When Wright mentioned that Elijah Muhammad had “silenced” Malcom X after the latter had made his infamous “chickens coming home to roost” comments, does he have the sense of irony (and does his congregation have the knowledge of history) to know that Elijah Muhammad eventually had Malcom X permanently silenced, if you know what I mean?

    2. Wright thinks that we stole this country “by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Comanche, the Arapahoe. . . .” Do you suppose it bothers him that the Sioux stole land from the Apache, or that the Apache stole land from the Arapahoe, or is it only bad when white Europeans do it?

    3. And then, of course, comes the litany of U.S. foreign policy “terrorism.” How come he mentions every act of aggression against minority groups, but never gets around to lamenting the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War? Is it OK with him when it’s whitey who is on the receiving end of American “terrorism”?

    Thanks again for the link. This time I lasted two minutes before Wright’s bulls*it got to be too malodorous for me to continue. It confirms my earlier held belief that Jeremiah Wright is a cheap demagouge and race hustler, and it saddens me all the more that someone like Obama would have spent 20 years accepting his vitriol and garbage.

    JVW (835f28)

  67. Levi @64 – Of course they are, which is explains why liberals install speech codes at colleges across the country to limit conservative speech and why democrats are trying to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. They are trying to protect those sensitive conservatives. Thank you for explaining.

    Retard

    daleyrocks (906622)

  68. Steverino –

    I’d raise my hand, but I need one hand to hold the bowl and the other to grab the popcorn.

    jim2 (a9ab88)

  69. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

    It’s true. All I hear from conservatives all day is how un-American I am, and how much of a pussy I am, and how I must just hate the troops, and you sissies can’t take a truthful little dig about how religious you are? You think your Christianity is some shield against criticism?

    You guys are like the biggest shit-talkers on the playground that run hysterically crying to the teacher when someone finally throws it back at you. ‘Obama attacked my religion! He’s so condescending!’ Wah, wah, wah. Don’t be such babies. Grow one god damn testicle and learn how to talk politics like adults.

    Levi (76ef55)

  70. Fun watching th left defend the religious wright!

    Rich (025f73)

  71. . Wright thinks that we stole this country “by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Comanche, the Arapahoe. . . .” Do you suppose it bothers him that the Sioux stole land from the Apache, or that the Apache stole land from the Arapahoe, or is it only bad when white Europeans do it?

    This is remarkably stupid, you are an idiot.

    Levi (76ef55)

  72. You idiots do cling to your religion, and your guns, and it makes you vote against your own economic interests, and that’s just the way it fucking is.

    I’m trying to respond, but it’s hard to type with a rosary in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

    JVW (835f28)

  73. How religious are we Levi?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  74. This is remarkably stupid, you are an idiot.

    Damn, Levi, your advanced debating skills are hard to defeat! I’ll note though that you forgot to say “fuck.” You lefties are always supposed to use the word “fuck,” as it is supposed to show us right-wingers how passionate you are.

    JVW (835f28)

  75. JVW, did you borrow that rosary from Joe Biden? He picks one up every time he goes campaigning.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  76. I have the original one that Sammy Davis, Jr. used in The Cannonball Run.

    JVW (835f28)

  77. Levi – So what you are saying is the the democrats should campaign as the party of atheism, abortion, sodomy, antitrade, higher taxes, weak national defense and unlimited immigration just to contrast themselves with republicans. I appreciate you clearing things up.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  78. JVW – He didn’t use all capital letters either. When they do that, it means what they are saying is extra super important – pay attention idiots.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  79. Levi is a phony. He only says vile things to get attention.

    It makes me nauseous to think Rev “Wrong” would be welcome at the White House. I saw him in action long before Obama came on the scene as a candidate and he has remained the same.

    At a funeral he speaks like that? What would he have to say at a wedding?

    PatAZ (56a0a8)

  80. No testicles here and don’t want to grow one.

    PatAZ (56a0a8)

  81. Observations on the Liberal contribution here:

    ‘Tom’, at least, is coherent and reasoned, even more so as the exchanges progressed. Time well-spent reading.

    ‘Levi’ simply shortens and coarsens. Time I’ll never get back. Hard to believe even s/he takes themselves seriously.

    Oh, the bitterness! Time to cling to my Ruger and my King James and direct menacing glances at darker-skinned, foreign-born neighbors.

    –furious

    furious (56af6d)

  82. Hey Levi,
    let me put my opposition to your views in terms you may better understand.
    1. You’re a punk assed child that has done nothing to merit your place in this great society.
    2. You’re mostly akin to a caged Chimpanzee, hating his confinement yet unable to live free in a larger, more challenging world, which reduces you to flinging your feces (better known to you as ‘shit’)around in your cage.
    3. Your liberalism is of the worst sort. Uniformed yet passionate. You rage the loudest at those things you know the least; decency, fairness and truth.
    and finally, give the rest of us a break and shut the fuck up.

    Paul from Fl (47918a)

  83. No matter how insipid and ridiculous Levi’s comments may be, they are nonetheless providing some great material to work with as evidenced by the very funny and brilliant wit of #65 – #82!

    Dana (b4a26c)

  84. At 9:38, troll writes: Wah, wah, wah. Don’t be such babies. Grow one god damn testicle and learn how to talk politics like adults.

    Three minutes later, at 9:41, troll demonstrates what he means by talking politics like an adult: This is remarkably stupid, you are an idiot.

    aunursa (1b5bad)

  85. You’re all feeding him and he’s loving you for it. Why don’t you all send him some flowers and candy too?

    nk (6b7d4f)

  86. PatAZ: No testicles here and don’t want to grow one.

    In a column today, Amy Alkon offered an alternative: “I may not have been born with balls, but I keep a little set in my makeup bag, and bring them out on an as-needed basis.”

    aunursa (1b5bad)

  87. From a fly-over rube:
    Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  88. Oh please, conservatives for the most part are exactly the whiney, complainy, thin-skinned pansies you’re always bitching about. How many times a day do I hear that since I’m a liberal, I hate the troops, I’m some faggy elitist, I want to coddle terrorists, I’m advocating imposing some sort of communist regime, I hate America, and on and on and on? Those are all just absurd, unfounded slurs, saying that ruralites cling to religion and guns is a truism. And you’re having a very huge and very public sob-fest about it.’

    This is just another of the myriad of reasons why it’s bad for people to mix religion into politics as much as conservatives do: you always try to use it as some bubble that shields you from criticism. It’s the ultimate authority; ‘You can’t make fun of me and of my beliefs!’, I mean you’re making outrageous claims like we hate babies and want America to fail, and we’re not supposed to talk about your religion? You talk about it all the time.

    Again, thin-skinned ninnies. All of you.

    Levi (76ef55)

  89. 42, Levi, are you suggesting that Obama, like Hitler, is able to put people under his spell by listening to his speeches instead of reading his words and analyzing them?

    Oh, Levi, your politics appear to be your religion. Are you going to go Jihad on us Apostates and Infidels who don’t agree with your lunacy?

    PCD (5ebd0e)

  90. Fun watching th left defend the religious wright!

    Props, Rich. You nailed it.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  91. lol.!

    Paul from Fl (47918a)

  92. How many times a day do I hear

    1)I’m some faggy elitist,

    2)I want to coddle terrorists,

    3)I’m advocating imposing some sort of communist regime,

    4)I hate America,

    “I mean, c’mon Mom…I’m going to get a job just as soon as I turn 30, so back off and let me live in the basement a few more years!”

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  93. cf bleachers #62, Before launching into an eloquent lunatic screed in #63 you brought up a really interesting point about Michelle Obama and how critical she is and I realized, as you wrote out her words, that she is talking to people like she is in CHURCH and she is the minister.

    When I went to (Baptist) church our minister didn’t tell everyone how things were all hunky dory and everyone was great and courageous etc.etc. He prayed for the sick and then told everyone what SINNERS they were! How they were going to ruin their lives or go to hell if they didn’t shape up. And then he exhorted them to do better, to go out and fix their backsliding ways. Then there was a lot of singing.

    Maybe Michelle O (and Big O?) aren’t down on America coz they are America haters but because (at least Michelle O) thinks that the SINS of the people must be exposed before REDEMPTION can be accomplished. Just like in church.

    Someone needs to tell her 1) that she aint in church anymore and no-one is interested in hearing about their society’s transgressions on the big stage. 2) If she just can’t help herself she needs to go lighter on the sin and heavier on the plan for how REDEPTION!!!!!! …..
    … will …be ….accomplished.

    EdWood (c2268a)

  94. EdWood,

    Maybe, if we were allowed to “Speak Truth to Power”, we’d all get in Michelle Obama’s face and tell her to attend to her own sins before she starts in ranting on her misperceived sins of the country.

    PCD (5ebd0e)

  95. EdWood,

    I don’t know about churches in the NE or Midwest but Christian denominations in the Southwest are not all the same. The message in some denominations is upbeat, kind and gentle while others focus on hellfire, brimstone, and that all people are sinners. “We’re all sinners” may be true but it would be a bummer to listen to week-in and week-out.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  96. Maybe Michelle O (and Big O?) aren’t down on America coz they are America haters but because (at least Michelle O) thinks that the SINS of the people must be exposed before REDEMPTION can be accomplished. Just like in church.

    Ed Wood, sorry you didn’t like #63…I happen to think it contains some substantial positions.

    And, your contextual explanation for what Michelle Obama may be up to with her comments…needs to be examined perhaps, with a slightly wider lens.

    “we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents.”

    As I stated in #62:

    This particular worldview, is from a woman who went to a church and brought her children there, to sit and listen to a DIVISIVE, MEAN, ANGRY, LYING, SLANDERING, rage…that was intended to GUIDE BY FEAR… a congregation of cynics…too willing to stand in complacency and cheer the “blame the white man” rhetoric for 20 years.

    So, the contrast for me here…is the fact that the man in the pulpit is a prime example of her criticisms of the NATION…but she utters not one peep about him.

    Her fellow CONGREGATION members are prime examples of the attributes she denigrates, but she utters not one peep about them.

    I’m not concerned as much with “redemption” (this always makes me think of savings bonds and green stamps…neither of which was that great of a deal in my experience)as I am with naked hypocrisy.

    Michelle Obama wishes to lecture in a smug and pedantic fashion to and about people she doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know…and how they should behave.

    A little closer to home, she ignores the very things she pontificates about…because she lacks moral clarity or courage. It’s not that she is in the bully pulpit, it’s merely that she’s simply acting like a regular bully.

    On the day that Michelle or Sen. Obama come out and clearly state that their hypocrisy has dawned on them, THAT is the day that true “redemption” can occur for them. Until then, it’s all posturing for posterity.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  97. How many times a day do I hear that since I’m a liberal, I hate the troops, I’m some faggy elitist, I want to coddle terrorists, I’m advocating imposing some sort of communist regime, I hate America, and on and on and on?

    Levi – As many times as it takes for you to say something that convinces people that you are not the things you say in the above sentence.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  98. DRJ, I know that, I have been to a lot of churches, but when I was growing up in the Missionary Baptist Church of my Grandmother it was the way I described it. The preacher wasn’t even hellfire and brimstone although there was a good bit of hell in some sermons…I forgot the part where we sang hymns and people could go up and confess which I thought was a great thing…and there was always the part where he told everyone that Jesus loved them and to go do better and walk a righteous path so he tried to end it on an up note.

    “We’re all sinners” may be true but it would be a bummer to listen to week-in and week-out.”
    Which is exactly my point above.

    EdWood (c2268a)

  99. cfbleachers, Ahh, so it’s Michelle Obama redeem thyself… I agree.

    What’s that verse in the bible about removing the plank from thine own eye? Very hard thing to do, especially if the person whose eye you are trying to pluck the mote from is insisting that you still don’t have the plank out of your own eye….

    EdWood (c2268a)

  100. Levi wrote: How many times a day do I hear that since I’m a liberal, I hate the troops, I’m some faggy elitist, I want to coddle terrorists, I’m advocating imposing some sort of communist regime, I hate America, and on and on and on?

    You’ve got it backwards. Most people — at least not the majority of people HERE, that I can tell — don’t call someone those things because they are liberal. It just happens to be that in the overwhelming majority of instances, when someone does hate the troops, is some “faggy elitist” (your words, not mine), want to coddle terrorists, advocate some sort of communist regime, and hate America, they turn out to be liberal.

    L.N. Smithee (b048eb)

  101. EdWood,

    My comment was intended to agree with yours and amplify on it a bit, but I should have made my agreement more clear.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  102. #64: Levi, you’re not helping your cause or your fellow progressives sustain a reasoned debate with these vultures – ahem – esteemed folks with whom I happen to disagree. [Note to the esteemed folks: j/k!]

    Mostly, though, it seems you’re no longer helping yourself around here. Seriously, Levi, It’s time to take a break.

    #66: JVW, let me say that I appreciate your good faith. However, your response to the video seems a tad overdramatic. I mean come on – if I can stomach Bush delivering the State of the Union year after year (caveat: there was wine involved), then you should be able to watch a measly youtube video or two. 😉 All kidding aside, my hope isn’t that you’d come away from this having converted to systematized black liberation theology, but rather to provide a little more of the framework from which Rev. Wright is operating. Now, you’re in a position to disagree with Wright based on the deeper issues, rather than shallow insults, which is a whole lot better than most. You can disagree with Wright’s interpretation of historical events, and still recognize that presenting a different perspective is not the same thing as lying.

    I should take a moment to mention why I actually care about this as much as I do. I’m a seminarian with the United Church of Christ, the denomination of which Trinity UCC (Wright’s former church) is a member. In addition to providing a huge amount of financial, ecclesiastical, and personnel resources that have bolstered the UCC, a mostly-white denomination, Trinity ministers to some of the poorest people in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. It has vital and vibrant ministries for the hungry and homeless, and best of all, operates from a philosophy of self-reliance and self-determination: one that says Black people need to get involved in the change that is needed. (I’m sure they would agree that White people should too, but Trinity is at least doing very tangible things about it in the meantime.)

    That last point is important. You think it’s bad that Rev. Wright doesn’t trust the U.S. government to act in the best interest of African Americans? What would you be saying if he was preaching the opposite message, that the U.S. has the responsibility to solve all of Black America’s problems through financial bailouts, welfare, reparations, etc.? The conservative complaints would be deafening.

    #70: Good one Rich, but in my case, it’s the religious left defending the religious Wright. 😉

    #81: furious, thanks for the kind words. Usually, I don’t get to be the ‘model minority’ around here…guess aphrael’s out for the day or something.

    #94: PCD, or maybe, since Michelle Obama is an American whose perspective is based on her experience on the south side of Chicago, she has the right to speak her mind as she sees fit. Just like you have the right to speak yours, based on your own experience.

    Tom (48689b)

  103. Wow, what dumb looking emoticons. Sorry, everybody. They go from ‘barely tolerable’ in typed form to ‘completely unacceptable’ in animated form.

    Tom (48689b)

  104. The hard part of being a gun-clutching, religion grasping Neanderthal, is going to be eating all that popcorn while watching the Modern Democratic Party self-destruct.
    I mean, which hand do I free-up to get that popcorn.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  105. Tom – Thank you for the information. Based on Obama’s speech on race, he feels that black racism is justified because of past injustice and white racism or anger is not and that it is up to whites to lift up black people. That does not seem to accord with the philosophy of Rev. Wright you just described, but perhaps there are differences between Obama and Wright. Obama may be more of a big government type, although the roots of BLT are in marxism, so it’s tough to picture that difference.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  106. Tom, Wright’s conspiracy theories about AIDS kill people. Period. The Black community has an atrociously high rate of AIDS because of their poor response to it and Wright’s lunacy is part of that.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  107. PatAZ wrote: At a funeral [Rev. Wright] speaks like that? What would he have to say at a wedding?
    If he was asked to officiate at a wedding of a white man to a black woman, probably what he said about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

    L.N. Smithee (d1de1b)

  108. #106: SPQR, I disagree. First, you are probably unaware of the comprehensive HIV/AIDS ministry coming out of Trinity UCC. Second, promoting a particular theory of the origin of AIDS is absolutely not responsible for “killing people,” whereas taking it on as a serious problem – as Trinity UCC does – is quite responsible for helping save people from contracting it.

    #107: Nope. Not even close.

    Tom (48689b)

  109. Your second link was very interesting, Tom #108.

    DRJ (a431ca)

  110. You can disagree with Wright’s interpretation of historical events, and still recognize that presenting a different perspective is not the same thing as lying.

    – September 2001: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

    Tom, I don’t know about “presenting a different perspective”, this is a lunatic fringe, crazy lie. Sorry, if that sounds like a shallow insult. It’s not meant as one.

    – September 2001: “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America is chickens coming home to roost.”

    This isn’t a “different historical perspective”, Tom…this is anti-Israel propaganda. State terrorism against the Palestinians is a crock.

    The “nexus” argument…because we support our friend and ally…we DESERVE 9-11 terrorism, is an affront to the truth on multiple levels. I knew people who died in those towers, Tom. And if this lying, racist, anti-Semite… had spewed this venom in my presence in the days following their loss, it would have taken all my will power to keep me from breaking his lying jaw.

    – April 2003: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America. No! No No! God damn America … for killing innocent people. God damn America for threatening citizens as less than humans. God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme.”

    America gives them drugs? Is this the “operates from a philosophy of self-reliance and self-determination” you were referring to?

    America kills “innocent people”? Really? Is that what America is all about in the ministries of Trinity United that you work with?

    America threatens people as less than humans? Really? Does Trinity United believe that America should be damned by God?

    Does Trinity United believe that America deserves its unarmed civilians should be kidnapped and slammed into our skyscrapers filled with other unarmed civilians?

    Please help me understand the “historical perspective” that advocates Christianity by suggesting innocents deserve violent deaths.

    – December 2007: “Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people. Hillary would never know that.”

    What would you be saying if he was preaching the opposite message, that the U.S. has the responsibility to solve all of Black America’s problems through financial bailouts, welfare, reparations, etc.?,i.

    I’m at a loss here, Tom. The country and the culture is controlled by rich white people. Who else then is it suggested can solve all of Black America’s “problems”?

    500,000 white deaths in the Civil War won’t prove that whites are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice, Civil Rights marches and deaths of whites won’t prove it, Barack and Michelle Obama going to private schools, getting assistance and preferences for admission at Ivy League undergraduate and law schools won’t prove it, Barack running and WINNING predominantly white states in the primaries won’t prove it. And, “financial bailouts, welfare, reparations”, haven’t proven it.

    “Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. … Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.”

    Tom, I don’t know the “historical perspective” of these THREE statements, but every one of them is a lie.

    – “We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers. … We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. … We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. … We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means.
    And … And … And! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this shit!”

    Finally, Tom. If this is what your ministry is teaching children…I have pity on their souls.

    This is nothing but hatred, bile, vicious lies, anti-Semitic rot. Contextualizing it won’t make this venom go away.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  111. Tom, you are flat out wrong and should know better.

    Wright’s lunacy kills people.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  112. You’ve got it backwards. Most people — at least not the majority of people HERE, that I can tell — don’t call someone those things because they are liberal. It just happens to be that in the overwhelming majority of instances, when someone does hate the troops, is some “faggy elitist” (your words, not mine), want to coddle terrorists, advocate some sort of communist regime, and hate America, they turn out to be liberal.

    Oh that’s a bunch of bullshit. I’ve had all of these things hurled at me by dozens of people here, and I’ve watched how the people here talk about Obama. This is the Republicans’ first line of defense. You accuse liberals of being extremists and then label us as treasonous troop-haters for not blindly going along with George Bush. And you can’t take a little comment about how wrapped up in religion you are? Like I said, you’re all giant wusses.

    Liberals don’t complain about the ‘troop-hating’ insults because we know they’re just fucking ridiculous, and not worth wasting any time on. Conservatives flip their lid about stuff like the ‘clinging’ comment because you know it’s fucking true. It’s a double standard, you’re all hypocrites, and you’re all crybabies.

    Levi (76ef55)

  113. ROFL.

    Oh, I’m hurting myself laughing at that last post of Levi’s.

    That’s hilarious. My irony meter just broke.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  114. SPQR wrote: Oh, I’m hurting myself laughing at that last post of Levi’s.

    That’s hilarious. My irony meter just broke.

    I just got an email from my irony meter. It’s complaining of being overworked. It says that if I’m going to visit threads with Levi’s comments, it wants a raise or it’s going on strike.

    Oops, just got IM’ed by my laugh meter. Gotta go.

    L.N. Smithee (e1f2bf)

  115. Liberals don’t complain about the ‘troop-hating’ insults because we know they’re just fucking ridiculous,

    Well, actually, many of them do hate the troops. And they’re not afraid to say so.

    aunursa (1b5bad)

  116. SPQR – upgrade to one with a fuse– better yet, a circuit breaker. Much easier.

    Foxfier (74f1c8)

  117. Put in bigger capacitors, though for this application, they might require more room than your house.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  118. Heck, I’m worried about melting the 1 inch square bus.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  119. And you can’t take a little comment about how wrapped up in religion you are?

    Levi – What evidence have people on this site given you that they are wrapped up in religion? This seems to be another example of you just “knowing” things, but being unable to provide evidence for them.

    You are both a gasbag and a retard.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  120. daleyrocks, the Goodyear Blimp demands an apology from you.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  121. #109: DRJ, it is interesting. As a white UCC seminarian, I’ve been to Trinity UCC, and I have professors and friends who are members there. I know many other white people who, like me, have gone there to visit. (It’s the biggest church in our denomination, with legendary music and preaching, so it’s sort of a necessary stop if you’re passing through Chicago.) Speaking purely from my experience, I don’t know a single white person who ever visited Trinity and came away uncomfortable. However, I know many who loved it, as I did. That’s why these perceptions – that Rev. Wright is racist, or anti-white, or that the church is separatist – are rather perplexing to people who are members or have attended there.

    Not that you asked, but I think that there’s a huge communication breakdown when it comes to issues of race. We can’t even agree on what terms mean, much less their implications. For example, if someone were to say, “America is a white supremacist country,” you and I would probably make very different assumptions about what this person meant. To many, the term “white supremacist” evokes hooded klansmen, burning crosses, and lynchings – which would make the statement that “America is a white supremacist country” completely ridiculous, offensive, and uncalled for. To me, however, I am not fazed in the least by that statement – NOT because I believe that most people are closet hooded klansmen (I believe precisely the opposite), but because I hear that statement as a systemic reference.

    You see, I have previously encountered and accepted the premise that due to her history, present demographics, and current concentration of wealth and power, America institutionally privileges white people. And here are some of the academic terms used to describe this premise: white supremacy, institutionalized racism (or just racism), white privilege, etc. Each of these terms can be heard as horribly offensive indictments against individuals – or as a reference to this assumed premise regarding the systemic framework of America.

    My point here is not to argue for or against this particular paradigm right now, but rather to illuminate that when someone like Rev. Wright makes references about how America was founded on “white supremacy,” he’s not talking about hooded klansmen, but about historical and current concentrations of power and wealth. Agree or disagree with the premise, but at least understand that this is not the same thing as hatred of white people.

    #111: SPQR, thanks for the link. This is interesting. On reading the article, it does seem that some believe that prevention efforts are made more difficult by virtue of this widespread belief that African American people hold about HIV/AIDS. However, as I learned on my very first visit to this site in 2004, correlation does not equal causation. Just because (1) many African Americans hold these views, and (2) African Americans are particularly at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS, does not mean that the former causes the latter – and your article doesn’t provide any evidence that it does, only speculation.

    As I pointed out above, Trinity UCC does have a particularly strong HIV/AIDS ministry in the context of a community that does not often address this issue out in the open, which is another reason I think that to say that Rev. Wright’s position “kills people” is too extreme, too categorically dismissive.

    Tom (48689b)

  122. Tom – Aren’t you the least bit embarassed that your flagship churches is led by a racist anti-semite that continues to demonstrate his disdain for thi country? The same country, ironically, that enabled him to purchase a 10,000 square foor mansion?

    JD (f44699)

  123. Tom, I appreciate what you have to say, but have difficulty using good works and such to gloss over the fact that TUCC awarded a lifetime achievement or whatever the award was to a race pimp and bigot like Louis Farrakhan. There is a huge disconnect between what you are saying and public actions and words of the church.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  124. “The same country, ironically, that enabled him to purchase a 10,000 square foor mansion?”

    The country enabled it. Nice.

    stef (6108f6)

  125. The country enabled it. Nice.

    Actually, Syria enabled it. That’s where Tony Rezko’s money is from. Thank you, stef.

    nk (6b7d4f)

  126. Tom,

    You’ve explained what white supremacy means to you and presumably to some members of your church. For arguments sake, let’s assume I accept your definition. Do you believe white supremacy will ever end in America and, if so, what will it take to end it?

    DRJ (a431ca)

  127. #122: JD, contrary to popular belief, your ability to name-call isn’t adding to this discussion.

    #123: daleyrocks, I understand the disconnect of which you speak, because I see it from the other side. There is indeed a vast disconnect between that which my friends and I have personally experienced regarding TUCC and Rev. Wright, and that which the media is rather selectively portraying. Even the Farrakhan award of which you speak doesn’t tell the whole story of this man or this church. I don’t personally accept everything that comes from TUCC, but neither do I personally accept everything that comes from any other church I’ve ever attended.

    It just comes down to the fact that this issue, like so many others, is not nearly as cut-and-dried as it might initially have seemed at the surface, that’s all.

    Tom (48689b)

  128. #126: Hi DRJ – I’ve got absolutely no time to continue this discussion right, but you raise a great question. I’ve got to get off patterico.com for a while, but feel free to contact me via email, either through this site or my own, to discuss this further. Thanks.

    Tom (48689b)

  129. Tom, go ahead and ignore researchers working in the area. If that makes you more comfortable with defending lunatic conspiracy theories being spouted in that ministry. Your dismissal does not change the substantive evidence cited ( try reading the whole piece sometime ).

    Just don’t think you are convincing anyone but yourself that Wright’s lunacy isn’t contributing to the deaths of those you purport to be helping.

    I don’t know if Wright really believes his foul garbage or not. It really does not matter in this instance – he’s made a lot of money exploiting people by flogging lunacy. In one case, he’s dangerous nutty and in the other case, he’s a dangerously evil.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  130. Tom’s situation is that he appears to discard rational thought when delving into non-spiritual matters.
    We know that religion requires faith over rationality.
    But, when dealing with the secular world, rationality is a better crutch than faith.

    Believing that someone is good is one thing; denying the evidence to the contrary is self-delusional.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  131. #129: SPQR, what you’re saying is simply not accurate, at least not according to the research you’ve provided. The research discusses the extent to which people have those beliefs. Nowhere does it claim that the propagation of these beliefs on HIV/AIDS affects prevention efforts. (Those claims are made by the activists who are commenting on the research.) If you’re going to continue to insist that the research says what it does not, please find another angle.

    #130: Another Drew, please show me where I’m “denying evidence.” To the contrary, on this thread, I’ve been providing evidence, in the form of Wright’s sermons in context, other media analysis of them, and the direct insights of those who are much closer to this matter than I suspect you are.

    If you’re referring to the “evidence” provided by the research that SPQR references, maybe you should take your own look at it, rather than blindly signing on to SPQR’s earnest, but flawed interpretation of it.

    Tom (48689b)

  132. Tom wrote:

    As a white UCC seminarian, I’ve been to Trinity UCC, and I have professors and friends who are members there … Speaking purely from my experience, I don’t know a single white person who ever visited Trinity and came away uncomfortable. However, I know many who loved it, as I did. That’s why these perceptions – that Rev. Wright is racist, or anti-white, or that the church is separatist – are rather perplexing to people who are members or have attended there.

    If you’re perplexed, you should find it instructive to watch Rev. Wright in his last appearance on Hannity & Colmes filibustering Sean Hannity – a former seminary student – telling him he is ignorant about “black liberation theology” and dare not demand answers from Wright about the role race plays in his church until Hannity had read the works of James Cone. But as most of us know now, Cone’s raison d’etre is to promote race first, and the Creator second; wrote Cone, “If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community.”

    … when someone like Rev. Wright makes references about how America was founded on “white supremacy,” he’s not talking about hooded klansmen, but about historical and current concentrations of power and wealth. Agree or disagree with the premise, but at least understand that this is not the same thing as hatred of white people.

    A couple of weeks ago, I jumped into a debate within a thread about whether or not what Wright said was any worse than the words of Trent Lott on former segregationist Presidential nominee Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday celebration. While some soft-pedaled Lott’s laudatory words about Thurmond’s Dixiecrat days, I submitted that while Lott’s statement that “America wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” if Thurmond been elected didn’t necessarily mean that he was a racist, nobody could quote Lott verbatim and credibly claim that such words never would have come out of the mouth of a hardcore bigot.

    The same principle applies to Wright, who goes far beyond appealing to racial pride to inspire his masses to dig deep within themselves, prayerfully lift themselves up, and experience the blessings that come along with industriousness and faith in God. To accomplish that end, Wright employs questionable means. He conjures up baseless fears of an omnipresent racist bogeyman wearing an Uncle Sam top hat that is just as much a clear and present danger to the continued existence of the race as the Ku Klux Klan once were.

    Wright dumbs down centuries of history to shoehorn it into his racist agenda. By that I am referring to his too-serious-to-be-just-ridiculous statements comparing Obama to Christ, saying that like Obama, Jesus was “a black man living in a country and controlled by a culture run by rich white people!” What “rich white people”? Well, Italians, of course! “The Romans were rich, the Romans were Italian–which means they were European, which means they were white–and the Romans ran everything in Jesus’ country.” Never mind that “Italians” as a race of people didn’t emerge until the Roman Empire of the era had fractured into European and Middle Eastern divisions. Never mind that neither the word “Italian” nor “Italy” nor “Europe” nor “European” is in any translation of the Holy Bible. Wright had to maintain his constant narrative that Rich White People have always had it in for Us Black People, dating from Jesus C. to Barack O.

    Presuming that a supposed Biblical scholar knows better, that is at the least disingenuous. But Wright’s screaming at the top of his lungs that “the government li-i-i-i-ed” about [not] inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color” from the pulpit is not just wrong, it’s not just evil. It’s blasphemous. John 4:24 says that God is a spirit, and is looking for those to serve him with spirit AND truth. Wright seems to think his spirit is enough, so to hell with the truth.

    Even accepting the premise that America is a nation founded on bigotry and oppression, what good does dwelling on any of that do for his congregation? Making white people the enemy doesn’t do anything beneficial for his flock, but it sure does fleece them pretty well. Mr. “Reject Middleclassness” is retiring to a gated community on his congregants’ dime.

    Do you see nothing awry, Tom?

    The Bible tells us that our common enemies are sin, Satan, and death. Rev. Wright throws people of certain colors in among them. Peter wrote that he knew that God was certainly not partial to a particular people. I don’t remember Jesus or any of the apostles writing of the need to fight against a color. I can think of a few ministers who have done that in the past, but they wouldn’t have joined in Rev. Wright’s movement. They would have hanged him.

    L.N. Smithee (e1f2bf)

  133. L.N. – I think Tom gave the game away with respect to why he wants to avoid looking at the seamier side of TUCC. Although I’m in no way comparing the organizations, a lot of liberals view Hamas and Hezbollah as benign social organization because of their good works and ignore, deliberately or otherwise, the terroristic side of the organizations. Tom said TUCC is the largest entity within the UCC demonination and is flourishing. A lot of sins can be overlooked for a cash cow.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  134. Indeed, daleyrocks, a lot of sins are being ignored by Tom.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  135. @128 Tom,
    Not really my biz… just being nosy… you a pro blogger for anyone maybe? You’re new, passionate and polite.

    Sorry… am open for whatever lemons. I’m a knuckle dragging, fire breathing TWP female.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  136. I’m a bit disappointed that Tom did not see fit to respond to a single point that I made, I thought I was respectful and pointed out some glaring areas where his position needed…at least clarification, at a minimum.

    I did get a bit emotional thinking of my friends from Marsh and Aon in the towers, but I hope that wasn’t the reason he ignored my response. If so, I apologize…I would like to hear why my analysis was skipped.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  137. cf – Marsh and Aon for me as well, in addition to some of the brokerage firms.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  138. securities brokers – cf

    daleyrocks (906622)

  139. daleyrocks, I’m so sorry for your loss. Had they hit the Sears Tower as they intended, the amount of people I would have known would have been staggering.

    I knew two girls who had moved to New York, young, pretty, sweet, kind, and it made it that much more personal for me.

    I don’t live in Chicago now (I’m probably a neighbor in SoCal), but I think about the inference that those two girls were nothing but chickens roosting to Jeremiah Wright and his congregation of smiling, clapping, cheering faces…and I wonder how we can ever bridge that chasm.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  140. cf – You’ve got a bunch of midwesterners on this board, not just folks from SoCal and Texas. With your handle, I was thinking center field on the north side, where they’ve had that problem with the billy goat.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  141. #110, 136: cfbleachers, I’m sorry for not addressing you earlier. I’m not trying to ignore or avoid you, it’s just that unlike some of your counterparts, you happen to write novels, dude! I didn’t feel I had the time to get into all of your points earlier. Thus, I’d like to extend to you the same invitation I gave DRJ – that is, to continue this over email (easier for me to focus that way, don’t have to sift through the insults, etc.). You can contact me through my blog and we’ll go from there.

    #132: L.N., I’m actually quite familiar with Cone; he is, after all, one of the early architects of black liberation theology, which is one of the liberation theologies, which is one of my theological areas of interest.

    And though I can’t find it (and I’ve looked), I do believe Dr. Cone said or wrote that quote somewhere at one time. However, I’ve read enough of him to know that this quote is not an accurate reflection of his theology, at least not as he’s outlined it in his many books. Rather, this appears to be yet another example of the cherry-picking that was done to Rev. Wright: let’s isolate the craziest single sentences we can out of 35 years of sermons and writings, then display these fragments as if they completely encapsulate the man and undo anything good about him.

    Which, of course, they do not. Martin Luther (the original) said heinous things about Jews. But that doesn’t mean that Protestants must adhere to his antisemitism, any more than it means that we must categorically reject everything Luther ever said or did. Critical thinking allows us to be more nuanced than that, able to discern what is good and reject that which is not.

    As to your other points, I simply fundamentally disagree with you. I’m not sure how else to put it. I understand what you’re saying, and if I had your paradigm I’d agree with you, but coming from my own encounters and experience, I look at the same quotes you’re citing and see the exact opposite. Of course Jesus was dark-skinned (I’m not sure if he was black, but he sure wasn’t white). Of course the Romans were white, or at least they were known to be light-skinned peoples. Of course, the Romans were in charge, while the people Jesus hung out with were the most oppressed folks in that society at that time. From my perspective, I’m not being disingenuous, you’re splitting hairs. As to your final thoughts, let me reiterate that Wright does not advocate hatred of white folks, but rather opposition to systemic racism in a country that still dishes out disproportionate benefits to white folks over all others (AND rich folks, Christian folks, straight folks, able-bodied folks, men folks, to name a few more).

    Again, my purpose is not to promote my particular theology, which I’m sure is in disagreement with most here, but I do want to lift up the possibility that there are those of us on both sides, even opposing sides, who are earnest, operating with integrity, driven by a commitment to love and truth as we see it. And yes, we’re highly imperfect, and we say and do stupid sh*t sometimes. Just like everybody else in the world, including every last one of the world’s religious leaders too.

    It’s getting late where I am (and I’m getting loopy). Apologies if this doesn’t translate so well in the morning.

    @135: Vermont Neighbor, no, I’m not a pro, just a religiously and politically driven amateur with an opinion – who generally tries to ‘practice what he preaches’ with regards to blog etiquette. And I appreciate being called “passionate and polite,” so thanks for that. However, I’ve been lurking for 4 years, so I’m not really that new. Let me say that this is the only conservative blog I semi-frequent, because there are actually people here who engage in respectful dialog on both sides, which is more than can be said for virtually any other conservative or liberal blog I can think of. Props to Patterico for setting and maintaining that tone.

    Tom (48689b)

  142. Tom, thanks for that answer.

    Just curious on the flag pin matter. I see it two ways. Either Obama went back on his convictions regarding the necessity of a lapel logo… or he pandered for votes.

    Candidates need to dance across hot coals, and Hillary and Obama are right there working it as hard as they can. You say you respect the practice/ preach approach. Does it bother supporters that Obama said one thing while doing another? Sorry if that’s blunt. Curious as to your perception.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  143. Just curious on the flag pin matter. I see it two ways. Either Obama went back on his convictions regarding the necessity of a lapel logo… or he pandered for votes.

    Ooooooh yes, the all-important flag pin matter! You don’t think it’s a little much to refer to something like this as a ‘conviction?’

    That reminds me, when McCain flip-flopped on having MLK Day, was he just pandering for votes, too?

    Levi (76ef55)

  144. it’s just that unlike some of your counterparts, you happen to write novels, dude! I didn’t feel I had the time to get into all of your points earlier.

    LOL, I apologize if I seem long-winded. I get into a thought process and then feel its better articulated if I complete the thought.

    Rather than take it off line here, perhaps we can still involve our friends here in our discussion by taking the points in pairs and examining them, perhaps.

    Your points seem to revolve around us not knowing the “fuller” person of Wright, Cone, Obama, Farrakhan, and the like…and that our opinions are formed by these snippets. I would love to see something other than purely anecdotal evidence of the love of their white countrymen. It sure would help.

    If the whole of their lives isn’t represented in these snippets, then surely they have significantly more printed and recorded statements which dwarf the hatred, bile, racism, anti-semitism, and anti-Americanism reflected within them. I will suggest in the following post which pairs we can discuss separately to make it easier to dissect in our discussions.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  145. Tom

    Let’s start with these two. I will reprint precisely what your point was…and my response, so that it does not appear that I’m changing anything to subvert the debate.

    1.) You can disagree with Wright’s interpretation of historical events, and still recognize that presenting a different perspective is not the same thing as lying.– September 2001:

    Exhibit A) “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

    For my purposes, I would like to discuss the following:

    a)the government lied
    b)about inventing the HIV virus
    c)as a means of genocide
    d)against people of color

    And I would like to discuss it juxtaposed against the following declarations:

    The government gives them the drugs, … No! No No! God damn America … for killing innocent people

    Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people

    Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.

    We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs,

    We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority

    believe it more than we believe in God. …

    We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. …

    We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means

    You see, Tom…I think a fair interpretation of Rev. Wright, taking his comments as a whole…is that white people run this country, the country is run as a racist, genocidal, attack on black people and it is “us” vs. “them”…in a fight against white supremacist murderers, who don’t believe in God and should be damned. And when white innocents are murdered, they deserve it…those are only chickens coming home to roost.

    I can’t parse these words enough, when taken as a whole…to come to any other reasonable, rational conclusion. It’s a consistent theme…and it is not based upon the country and countrymen I know…throughout history and especially today, who were willing to lay down their lives for justice, honor and integrity. It’s a slander against a race of people, it’s divisive and it’s based upon lies.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  146. If the whole of their lives isn’t represented in these snippets

    If? What do you mean if? Would 60 seconds of videotape accurately represent your whole life?

    This is the type of political debate that’s important to you? You want a liberal to prove to you that Louis Farakhan loves white people? What would that prove or disprove?

    Levi (76ef55)

  147. And when white innocents are murdered, they deserve it…those are only chickens coming home to roost.

    Ah yes, because of course, only white people died on 9-11. ‘Rev Wright must have been so happy on 9-11 when the towers collapsed because he hates white people,’ is that your interpretation of the ‘chickens coming home’ comment?

    Levi (76ef55)

  148. If? What do you mean if? Would 60 seconds of videotape accurately represent your whole life?

    It depends upon the snippets, I suppose. It certainly would be fair use to examine my statements to see if they reflect my true feelings.

    Even more powerful evidence would be a succession or compilation of my statements, to see if they reflect a pattern of thought, behavior, opinions.

    Levi, you come to conclusions about people, including me…based upon snippets here. Each and every day I see you post, you say you “know” all about every single poster here, solely because they post here. You know their religious beliefs, you know their positions on every issue, you know how they think…based upon snippets of posted conversation.

    Are you now saying that you need to get to know each individual better…before you come to conclusions about them…and that you were horribly wrong in doing so?

    You don’t know the “whole person”…yet, I can go back and quote you close to three dozen times…making declarations about your knowledge of everyone here.

    This is the type of political debate that’s important to you?

    A debate on how an entire segment of our country is being turned against another segment, based upon lies, slander, brainwashing and indoctrination? Of course that’s important to me, Levi. It should be important to anyone who cares about the country, about race relations, about healing, about moving forward together.

    You want a liberal to prove to you that Louis Farakhan loves white people? What would that prove or disprove?

    Well, no. I want to engage Tom in meaningful discussion to flesh out…with as much honesty as each side can muster…how intentional slander can not only be divisive…but harmful to its listeners. That there are hidden dangers in a message of lies and hate…that are waiting to prey upon the congregation, more than on their targets of derision and bile.

    I know Louis Farrakhan doesn’t love white people, Levi. Nor do any of the other propietors of racial warfare. On both sides. (David Duke doesn’t love black people). Using God’s house to spread lies, slander and hatred…and doing so in Jesus’ name (or Mohammed’s, I suppose in Farrakhan’s case)…provides them a cover, but which makes them hypocrites as well.

    It’s not whether Farrakhan or Wright or Cone love white people, it’s whether their class warfare and racial warfare slanders have done damage to the truth and to the people who are taken in by their brainwashing.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  149. And when white innocents are murdered, they deserve it…those are only chickens coming home to roost.

    Ah yes, because of course, only white people died on 9-11. ‘Rev Wright must have been so happy on 9-11 when the towers collapsed because he hates white people,’ is that your interpretation of the ‘chickens coming home’ comment

    Levi, you are too young to remember where that statement first arose. It was uttered by Malcolm X after JFK was assassinated.

    He said that it was white people’s chickens coming home to roost. And yes, there is no other interpretation that makes sense. Rev. Wright believes the very thing Malcolm X said.

    Rev. Wright certainly doesn’t believe that black people deserved retribution. He certainly doesn’t believe black people run the country. He certainly doesn’t believe that black people caused the 9/11 planes to fly into buildings…so it is axiomatic that he doesn’t believe that black people were appropriate victims of 9/11, only whites.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  150. It depends upon the snippets, I suppose. It certainly would be fair use to examine my statements to see if they reflect my true feelings.

    Even more powerful evidence would be a succession or compilation of my statements, to see if they reflect a pattern of thought, behavior, opinions.

    Levi, you come to conclusions about people, including me…based upon snippets here. Each and every day I see you post, you say you “know” all about every single poster here, solely because they post here. You know their religious beliefs, you know their positions on every issue, you know how they think…based upon snippets of posted conversation.

    Are you now saying that you need to get to know each individual better…before you come to conclusions about them…and that you were horribly wrong in doing so?

    You don’t know the “whole person”…yet, I can go back and quote you close to three dozen times…making declarations about your knowledge of everyone here.

    I don’t think it’s unfair to judge you based on who you elect. The conservative movement and its ideology has been on prominent display for the last few years, so it’s not like I’m wildly speculating about conservatives and supporters, as you are with Wright. Further, I understand that many of you can and do have disagreements with George Bush and other parts of the Republican platform, but I don’t feel it’s necessary to except or include each and every G.O.P. constituency from each of my criticisms, I don’t have time for that. So if you’re a non-religious conservative, and I’m commenting about conservative religion, don’t worry. I’m not talking about you. I shouldn’t have to spell that out each time I say something, generalizations and blanketing are necessary parts of political discussion.

    But these political generalizations we all make about either side for the sake of convenience are nothing like the speculative assumptions about Rev. Wright that this boards’ conservatives litter about. It’s like you all actually think you know everything there is to know about the man, and that you’re privy to the intimate details of his relationship with Obama over 20 years, because you’ve seen a few carefully selected video clips. There’s a difference.

    A debate on how an entire segment of our country is being turned against another segment, based upon lies, slander, brainwashing and indoctrination? Of course that’s important to me, Levi. It should be important to anyone who cares about the country, about race relations, about healing, about moving forward together.

    This is Wright we’re talking about here? Farakhan? The Obamas? According to you, they’re all similarly nefarious race-mongers, but come on, you really think Barack wants to turn blacks against white people? You think Wright wants to?

    Well, no. I want to engage Tom in meaningful discussion to flesh out…with as much honesty as each side can muster…how intentional slander can not only be divisive…but harmful to its listeners. That there are hidden dangers in a message of lies and hate…that are waiting to prey upon the congregation, more than on their targets of derision and bile.

    It’s not already well established that slander can be divisive and harmful? That seems like an exceedingly boring topic to spend any amount of time on given everything else you could be talking about.

    It’s not whether Farrakhan or Wright or Cone love white people, it’s whether their class warfare and racial warfare slanders have done damage to the truth and to the people who are taken in by their brainwashing.

    Yeah, well, it’s a good thing none of those guys are running for President.

    Levi (76ef55)

  151. He said that it was white people’s chickens coming home to roost. And yes, there is no other interpretation that makes sense. Rev. Wright believes the very thing Malcolm X said.

    No other interpretation? That’s a phrase people have used for years to describe many things, why does he have to mean it the exact way that Malcolm X means it, particularly when it doesn’t even make sense?

    Rev. Wright certainly doesn’t believe that black people deserved retribution. He certainly doesn’t believe black people run the country. He certainly doesn’t believe that black people caused the 9/11 planes to fly into buildings…so it is axiomatic that he doesn’t believe that black people were appropriate victims of 9/11, only whites.

    In 7 years, I’ve never heard anybody claim that 9-11 was an attack on white America the way that you just did. I’ll give you credit though, I know you don’t actually believe it was, that’s just the type of unintended factual distortion that’s going to pop up when you’re scrambling to manipulate facts to further this assumptive political narrative that you’ve all seized upon. Wright certainly said some racially charged things, but the 9-11 comment wasn’t one of them.

    Levi (76ef55)

  152. In 7 years, I’ve never heard anybody claim that 9-11 was an attack on white America the way that you just did

    You seem terribly confused. I didn’t claim, at any point, or in any manner…that 9/11 was an attack on white America. I’m not sure if it’s worth disabusing you of this notion, or if you already understand and you are simply twisting my words to defeat a strawman.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  153. – September 2001: “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America is chickens coming home to roost.”

    Wright certainly said some racially charged things, but the 9-11 comment wasn’t one of them

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  154. generalizations and blanketing are necessary parts of political discussion.

    They are only necessary for the caricatures dancing around in your head.

    because you’ve seen a few carefully selected video clips.

    These clips were “carefully selected” in the Best of Jeremiah Wright series published on DVD by TUCC.

    JD (75f5c3)

  155. Levi, if you truly wish to learn what Conservatives/Conservatism is all about, why don’t you hike down to the Library and start with Vol 1, #1, of National Review?
    When you have worked yourself up to 1980, you’ll then be able to comment at least on the foundations under the Reagan Administration.
    From there, you can work on what we’re trying to do now.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  156. Or go read some Russell Kirk. Or argue with the caricatures in your head.

    JD (75f5c3)

  157. No, Russell Kirk would be good.
    But then, in the early days at NR, there was a lot of Kirk in there.
    Arguing with his caricatures would only reinforce his self-delusion.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  158. It’s not already well established that slander can be divisive and harmful? That seems like an exceedingly boring topic to spend any amount of time on given everything else you could be talking about.

    It’s not whether slander is divisive and harmful, Levi…it’s whether it holds a particularly noxious outcome for the listener as well as the target.

    It may be boring to discuss how blacks who are infused with indoctrination about white culture, white leaders, white officials are attempting to commit genocide on them…what should not be boring is what impact these slanders have on the lives of those who hear it, internalize it, believe it.

    Sen. Obama, his wife, his children continued to patronize, support and embrace the pastor who preached this ideology.

    How deep is that embrace for a man who wishes to be our next President and for the prospective First Lady?

    You suggest that anyone who “elected” President Bush, is thereby painted with the broad brush of support for his ideals. In the same breath, you suggest that Sen. Obama is not similarly attached to Rev. Wright.

    Yet, voting for President Bush was an either/or proposition, if one voted at all. Attending to and outwardly supporting Rev. Wright for two decades…is a continuing choice, reaffirmed year after year.

    One vote…in a choice between two people on a single day…vs. 20 years of support, I would think that the latter was more indicative of a person’s belief system.

    And yes, it is important what Sen. Obama, his wife, his closest advisors, his mentors, his inner circle believes. Those are signals as to what he believes and what worldview he is comfortable surrounding himself with.

    Just as you believe that people here are comfortable with a particular worldview…because they are here. It’s how you form your opinions about them. It’s a bit disingenuous to criticize others who are doing precisely the same.

    It’s not whether Farrakhan or Wright or Cone love white people, it’s whether their class warfare and racial warfare slanders have done damage to the truth and to the people who are taken in by their brainwashing.

    Yeah, well, it’s a good thing none of those guys are running for President.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  159. You seem terribly confused. I didn’t claim, at any point, or in any manner…that 9/11 was an attack on white America.

    All the same, I’ve never heard anyone refer to 9-11 as ‘when white innocents are murdered,’ either.

    I’m not sure if it’s worth disabusing you of this notion, or if you already understand and you are simply twisting my words to defeat a strawman.

    You don’t have to disabuse (good word) me of anything, it was you that was going on about Rev. Wright’s perceived anti-whiteness, and it was you that tried to use his 9-11 comment to buttress that perception. That sort of misdirection probably plays pretty well around here, but I’m calling you on it, so right on cue, here comes ‘you’re twisting my words!’ and ‘you’re fighting a strawman!’ I know you don’t subscribe to the notion that 9-11 was an attack on whites, and I already said as such, it was just a stumble because you’re reasoning backwards, from an assumed conclusion, i.e., Wright is a racist. You don’t have a whole lot of evidence of that, so you tried to use his 9-11 comment to artificially bolster your case. It’s like changing the font size to lengthen papers. Actually, it’s more like just making up a bunch of nonsensical bullshit to lengthen papers.

    When you’re assuming as much as yourself and others have with regards to Rev. Wright, you’re going to be wrong from time to time, assumptions can only be right or wrong. Just admit you were wrong about this, and move on. I like how, once again, you’ve ignored everything I said to focus on one tiny little sliver, and now I’m sure we’ll never return to the topic. Mission accomplished for the typical Republican.

    Levi (76ef55)

  160. Levi, if you truly wish to learn what Conservatives/Conservatism is all about, why don’t you hike down to the Library and start with Vol 1, #1, of National Review?
    When you have worked yourself up to 1980, you’ll then be able to comment at least on the foundations under the Reagan Administration.
    From there, you can work on what we’re trying to do now.

    Why do I care about Reagan conservatism? I want to know about Bush conservatism, and McCain conservatism. Your conservatism. About all of which I am extremely well informed, thank you very much. You should go to the library and find out what an ‘elitist’ is.

    Levi (76ef55)

  161. cfbleachers…
    Your arguments are well structured, cogent, and reasoned; and completely wasted on Levi.
    He is comfortable in his little cacoon, and no matter what we say or do, will not change.
    He only stays here because he knows we are annoyed by him.
    I used to know teens like him.
    We called them flies: All they did was eat, shit, and bother people.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  162. Or go read some Russell Kirk. Or argue with the caricatures in your head.

    No, Russell Kirk would be good.
    But then, in the early days at NR, there was a lot of Kirk in there.
    Arguing with his caricatures would only reinforce his self-delusion.

    They are only necessary for the caricatures dancing around in your head.

    Hey here’s an idea, you idiots could argue with me. Why don’t you ever try that?

    Levi (76ef55)

  163. Levi, you are still terribly confused.

    Rev. Wright made racist statements. Numerous racist statements. Please see ALL of them that I highlighted in my attempt to discuss this with Tom.

    Many of them are outright lies, the totality of them are slanders against white people, Israel, America.

    All the same, I’ve never heard anyone refer to 9-11 as ‘when white innocents are murdered,’ either.

    You are, of course…intentionally removing the context. Rev. Wright assailed America as having done things to DESERVE 9-11. (that is the only rational interpretation of “chickens coming home to roost”). His intent is clear. White people harmed black people in South Africa, white people supported state sponsored terrorism…white people got what they had coming to them for their behavior.

    He doesn’t believe that other people had this coming to them…because he doesn’t declare them guilty of “root causes” for it.

    It’s not that I don’t “subscribe” to the notion that 9-11 was an attack on whites only…it’s that I never said or intimated any such thing. I said that Rev. Wright’s worldview…is that white people “caused” the attack on America…and “chickens coming home to roost” was intended to suggest that they got what they deserved.

    Not sure if this will help you understand.

    And, of everyone…I try to respond to your issues…point by point…I don’t avoid any of them. But, I don’t feel I’m in the least bit wrong on anything I’ve written so far. I think you simply are having a very difficult time following it all.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  164. It’s not whether slander is divisive and harmful, Levi…it’s whether it holds aparticularly noxious outcome for the listener as well as the target.

    It may be boring to discuss how blacks who are infused with indoctrination about white culture, white leaders, white officials are attempting to commit genocide on them…what should not be boring is what impact these slanders have on the lives of those who hear it, internalize it, believe it.

    Sen. Obama, his wife, his children continued to patronize, support and embrace the pastor who preached this ideology.

    How deep is that embrace for a man who wishes to be our next President and for the prospective First Lady?

    Boring indeed. I’m already starting to tune it out. We just don’t agree from the premise, I don’t think Rev. Wright is some horrible, racist, hate-filled curmudgeon. I’m a white guy and I take no offense to anything he says. I don’t care that Obama went to church there, I don’t care for how long he did, or that he brought his kids. I’m an atheist, but I’m infinitely more comfortable with the way that Barack Obama talks about his religion than George Bush and his fellow Republicans talk about theirs. I can hear ‘But they had a 20 year relationship!’ a million more times and it’s not going to change my mind about who I want to be the President. I’m a liberal, and Obama’s pastor isn’t going to keep me from voting for him if he’s the best candidate. So you can see we never actually will get anywhere on this, unless you all start agreeing with me.

    Because I’m right.

    You suggest that anyone who “elected” President Bush, is thereby painted with the broad brush of support for his ideals. In the same breath, you suggest that Sen. Obama is not similarly attached to Rev. Wright.

    Duh? That’s what voting is. ‘The best representation for me is ________.’ You guys filled in George Bush. Has Obama ever filled in Rev. Wright? I’ve never heard Obama say that Wright is so smart and right about everything that he should run the entire country, have you?

    Yet, voting for President Bush was an either/or proposition, if one voted at all. Attending to and outwardly supporting Rev. Wright for two decades…is a continuing choice, reaffirmed year after year.

    Which Obama is free to make. It’s ironic, I would say, how close the right is to engaging in outright religious prosecution of Obama, and of all the other black people similarly ‘brainwashed’ by Wright over the years, with the oft-repeated ‘But 2 whole decades!’ whine. We live in America, after all, his congregation can do as they please, but now apparently the tens of thousands of people that have ever listened to Wright in a church environment are now slavering zombies to black liberation theology. At the very least, that’s a little elitist, don’t you think?

    One vote…in a choice between two people on a single day…vs. 20 years of support, I would think that the latter was more indicative of a person’s belief system.

    What is this bullshit? Conservatives are still conservatives even when it’s not an election day, you’re all still posting on your blogs and calling into your radio shows, are you not? Most people only go to church one hour on one day a week, but we’re political entities every moment of our lives. On election day, when you select a candidate, this is the governing philosophy that you’re ascribing to, what you think is in everyone’s best interests, that’s way more reflective of who you are and what you believe than anything that some boring weekly lecture you attend for 20 years.

    And yes, it is important what Sen. Obama, his wife, his closest advisors, his mentors, his inner circle believes. Those are signals as to what he believes and what worldview he is comfortable surrounding himself with.

    And again, nothing that your side’s been hysterically blabbering about for months raises any concerns for me.

    Just as you believe that people here are comfortable with a particular worldview…because they are here. It’s how you form your opinions about them. It’s a bit disingenuous to criticize others who are doing precisely the same.

    Yeah, covered this already. Making assumptions about politics is one thing, pretending to know what happened in a church in Chicago in the 80’s is another.

    Levi (76ef55)

  165. Levi is moving backward in his arguments. When I pointed out that not all on this site blindly supported Bush, given the choice of voting for Gore or Kerry, he agreed that it was wrong of him to make that assumption. He is backtracking again into his one type of conservative argument.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  166. Levi, my poor friend, don’t you know that to Wright you are nothing more than the person he wants to kill last?

    “God damn Levi! He wants black women to abort black babies. He supports white queers spreading AIDS to the black community. He wants white queers to be able to take black men away from black women. He lives in high style in Wrigleyville while black folk live with rats in Robert Taylor home. God bless Levi? No! God damn Levi!”

    He’s a racist, Levi. A vicious, virulent racist.

    nk (6b7d4f)

  167. I’m a liberal, and Obama’s pastor isn’t going to keep me from voting for him if he’s the best candidate. So you can see we never actually will get anywhere on this, unless you all start agreeing with me.

    Because I’m right.

    From my perspective, you are not a liberal, liberalism is dead and gone. You are a radical leftist. There’s a difference as I see it. Which is fine, but I think the distinction is important.

    Obama’s pastor isn’t going to sway you, because you are not capable of being swayed. Frankly, Obama’s pastor isn’t going to make a difference to those who weren’t going to vote for him either.

    However, Obama’s pastor isn’t quite the non-factor to most open-minded people who are looking more deeply into the worldview and belief system of a man who wishes to be our President.

    Again, delving into the formative factors of Sen. Obama’s worldview and belief system…in order to get the true picture of who he is and how he might conduct his Presidency…require, necessitate, demand…that we examine his mentors, advisors, inner circle.

    Rev Wright was, by Sen. Obama’s own words…not merely a “once a week” person in his life. He was a mentor, a spiritual advisor, …idolized and admired. You can water that down any way you like, you can try to cover for it, you can denigrate it and make it seem shallow and irrelevant. In fact, you need to do that.

    Because if indeed Rev. Wright is a racist, anti-Semite, anti-American, class warfare, racial warfare bigot…then that embrace takes on a meaning you can’t live with…because you are forced to agree with it, or forced to hide from it.

    You have chosen the latter, but I’m not convinced what you really want to shout…is the former.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  168. You suggest that anyone who “elected” President Bush, is thereby painted with the broad brush of support for his ideals. In the same breath, you suggest that Sen. Obama is not similarly attached to Rev. Wright.

    Duh? That’s what voting is. ‘The best representation for me is ________.’ You guys filled in George Bush. Has Obama ever filled in Rev. Wright? I’ve never heard Obama say that Wright is so smart and right about everything that he should run the entire country, have you?

    Once again, Levi. You miss the point. I really didn’t think these points were that subtle, but, perhaps for you they are difficult to grasp.

    We make choices in our lives about who will be “representative” of our true selves. We do this by the inner circle we keep. By our affiliations and by a myriad of other choices we make.

    Voting for one candidate or another (as opposed to campaigning or giving financial contributions to a candidate) is a choice. But, it is not necessarily a definitive choice.

    A moderate…forced to choose between a radical leftist and a far right candidate…may choose one or the other, or not to vote. Some policies or issues resonate with them, some do not.

    Rev. Wright, Rev. Meeks, Rev. Otis Moss, “Frank”, Daddy Obama, Ayers and Dorhn, Rezco, Brzezinski, Malley, Lake, Power…are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with which one begins to understand Sen. Obama’s worldview.

    His words have to align with his actions. Lofty speeches and ex post facto denouncements…are suspicious and conspicuous by their absence for the prior two decades. If these statements were worthy of denouncement today, why the silence and loving embrace until yesterday?

    Rev. Wright isn’t running for office, but which of his ideas and notions will enter the White House with the person who is?

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  169. Levi is just a fully indoctrinated member of the cult of Bill Maher. You need to remember that Bill Maher makes Keith Olbermann look rational. Because Levi follows BMCW, Bill Maher Conventional Wisdom, he needs not facts or links to support what he says here and thus provides none. It is true according to his oracle, plus according to the movies he watches. Levi’s generation does not do books. It’s silly of you to ask.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  170. You are, of course…intentionally removing the context. Rev. Wright assailed America as having done things to DESERVE 9-11.
    (that is the only rational interpretation of “chickens coming home to roost”). His intent is clear. White people harmed black people in South Africa, white people supported state sponsored terrorism…white people got what they had coming to them for their behavior.

    He doesn’t believe that other people had this coming to them…because he doesn’t declare them guilty of “root causes” for it.

    It’s not that I don’t “subscribe” to the notion that 9-11 was an attack on whites only…it’s that I never said or intimated any such thing. I said that Rev. Wright’s worldview…is that white people “caused” the attack on America…and “chickens coming home to roost” was intended to suggest that they got what they deserved.

    Not sure if this will help you understand.

    This ‘context’ you think you’ve discovered is imaginary and only further exposes your argumentative weakness. The real idea that Wright is expressing isn’t an academically unstudied one, many people wondered why this happened to us, didn’t you? And bear in mind, this sermon about 9-11 was given a few days immediately after 9-11, you don’t remember a few conservative religious leaders saying a little something about America deserving 9-11 in the ensuing days?

    And again, you’re assuming and inferring all sorts of little things by insisting that Rev. Wright really means ‘white government’ when he’s explicitly saying ‘we.’ I mean do I have to explain to you what the meaning of the word we is? ‘Us and them.’ Is that a suitable enough definition that you and I, we, can agree on? You’re telling me he means ‘white government,’ and not ‘America, all of America, me and you, us and them, all of us, throughout history at least as far back as 1945, WE?’

    And, of everyone…I try to respond to your issues…point by point…I don’t avoid any of them. But, I don’t feel I’m in the least bit wrong on anything I’ve written so far. I think you simply are having a very difficult time following it all.

    You do, which is nice. Thanks.

    Levi (76ef55)

  171. And again, you’re assuming and inferring all sorts of little things by insisting that Rev. Wright really means ‘white government’ when he’s explicitly saying ‘we.’ I mean do I have to explain to you what the meaning of the word we is? ‘Us and them.’ Is that a suitable enough definition that you and I, we, can agree on? You’re telling me he means ‘white government,’ and not ‘America, all of America, me and you, us and them, all of us, throughout history at least as far back as 1945, WE?’

    – September 2001: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

    – September 2001: “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own backyard. America is chickens coming home to roost.”

    – December 2007: “Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people. Hillary would never know that.”

    – “Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. … Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.”

    – “ We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.

    I don’t see an “us and them” in the use of this royal “we”. I see an Us vs Them.

    Do I believe when he talks about America, do I believe when he talks about the government…that he means white people…who are “running the country”? I don’t see how it could mean any other thing. Especially, since that’s precisely what he says.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  172. What’s become clear is that Levi does not even understand his own words.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  173. And bear in mind, this sermon about 9-11 was given a few days immediately after 9-11, you don’t remember a few conservative religious leaders saying a little something about America deserving 9-11 in the ensuing days?

    If I remember correctly, their comments were widely and rightly condemned. And at least one apologized.

    When will Rev. Wright apologize for his stupidity?

    aunursa (1b5bad)

  174. However, Obama’s pastor isn’t quite the non-factor to most open-minded people who are looking more deeply into the worldview and belief system of a man who wishes to be our President.

    Oh really? And who would these ‘open-minded people’ be? I’m a young Obama supporter, so we we’ve established that I cannot by definition be open-minded. That would make you the open-minded one? And you honestly would evaluate Obama on his worldview and belief system?

    Did you happen to watch CNN’s little ‘Compassion Forum’ with Barack Obama the other day? This is exactly something that an open-minded person that wanted to ‘look more deeply’ into both Obama’s worldview and belief system! Two birds with one stone! Did you watch it? Read the transcript? It was nice,hearing from Obama about Obama’s worldview and belief systems, and not inferring things about them by endlessly and impossibly scrutinizing someone that use to run his church.

    He sounds like my type of religious person, keeps it personal, keeps it private, lets others do their own thing. But hey, what do I know? I actually watched it.

    Rev. Wright isn’t running for office, but which of his ideas and notions will enter the White House with the person who is?

    So the goal of all of this scrutiny about Wright is because you’ve designated yourselves thought police, is that what you’re saying? Obama was exposed to Wright, he was uncleansably tainted by the evil, and can thus never be President, because he’s somehow, someway, subconsciously maybe, a giant fucking racist that would get all of us white people killed, that’s what you’re saying all this boils down to? There’s no way that Obama could have taken away any of the positive ideas and notions from his church and his faith, right?

    Levi (76ef55)

  175. I don’t see an “us and them” in the use of this royal “we”. I see an Us vs Them.

    Do I believe when he talks about America, do I believe when he talks about the government…that he means white people…who are “running the country”? I don’t see how it could mean any other thing. Especially, since that’s precisely what he says.

    Okay buddy, now you’re just being a shit. We were talking about the 9-11 quote, specifically, and the context surrounding that quote.

    Look at it, all by itself, free from the confusing and distracting clutter you insist on pairing it with that prevents your frail, feeble mind from grasping that he isn’t referring to ‘white government,’ but to all of us;

    We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

    We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation

    Do you see that? That’s the real context, ‘we’ is the real context, not a handful of other quotes taken from a bunch of different sermons about a bunch of different topics delivered over the course of a few years. Stop trying to cheat.

    Levi (76ef55)

  176. If I remember correctly, their comments were widely and rightly condemned. And at least one apologized.

    When will Rev. Wright apologize for his stupidity?

    Wright isn’t wrong about what he said. He never just stupidly blamed all his worst enemies for it like Falwell and Robertson did, he gave the blame to all of us, see my ‘we’ post above. He also correctly diagnosed the root cause of the attack; the foreign policy of the United States, which undeniably, no matter what we do, is going to get some people mad at us.

    The press coverage of televangelists was and is minute compared to the considerable flogging the mainstream and conservative media outlets are giving to this dead horse.

    Levi (76ef55)

  177. He also correctly diagnosed the root cause of the attack; the foreign policy of the United States, which undeniably, no matter what we do, is going to get some people mad at us.

    If you actually believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention for the past decade. The people who planned and carried out the major terrorist attacks around the world, including those against the United States, have stated their goal and purpose quite clearly and quite frequently. And it isn’t to change American foreign policy.

    (BTW, your statement contradicts itself. It’s our fault no matter what we do???)

    aunursa (1b5bad)

  178. Oh really? And who would these ‘open-minded people’ be?

    Someone who doesn’t come into the debate with a cemented position about Republicans, or Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton, would be about as broad a definition as I can come up with off the cuff.

    From your posts, that would seem to eliminate you.

    I’m a young Obama supporter, so we we’ve established that I cannot by definition be open-minded.

    Being young has nothing to do with being open-minded. Impressionable perhaps, easily fooled and misled, perhaps. More easily indoctrinated, studies seem to indicate all of the above.

    Being an Obama supporter seems to make you an ardent and sometimes strident advocate and defender. That would hamper open-mindedness in almost all cases.

    That would make you the open-minded one? And you honestly would evaluate Obama on his worldview and belief system?

    If I could gain a firmer grasp on his worldview and belief system, that would help…yes. But his campaign has severely limited inquiry, access and response to questions that might shed light on those subjects. The deadwood media is in his pocket, so we can expect nothing of value there.

    Did you happen to watch CNN’s little ‘Compassion Forum’ with Barack Obama the other day? This is exactly something that an open-minded person that wanted to ‘look more deeply’ into both Obama’s worldview and belief system! Two birds with one stone!

    From what I understand, Sen. Clinton was there as well. Did you learn about her worldview and belief system…by listening to her words?

    She’s a hunter, don’t you know? And a faith-based, down home, country girl at heart. After all…she SAID she was.

    Some poor dolts still look at her actions…as opposed to her pre-scripted words to evaluate the credibility of her responses. Imagine that.

    I didn’t realize that prepared responses were all we were supposed to look at, they are so revealing. Just ask the Tigress of Tuzla.

    He sounds like my type of religious person, keeps it personal, keeps it private, lets others do their own thing. But hey, what do I know? I actually watched it.

    Actually, not sure how “religious” Sen. Obama is at all. SOME people think he attended that church to gain street credibility. His mother’s upbringing of him…made religion more historical than spiritual. You can take politicians at face value, I prefer to do a little more digging beneath the prepared words.

    Rev. Wright isn’t running for office, but which of his ideas and notions will enter the White House with the person who is?

    So the goal of all of this scrutiny about Wright is because you’ve designated yourselves thought police, is that what you’re saying?

    Thought police? Um…no. I don’t particularly care what anyone thinks, nor do I seek to control their thoughts. It MAY have an impact on whether I support a worldview or belief system in someone who is ASKING me to formulate an opinion on that very subject.

    You see, Levi…when someone runs for President…the reason they give speeches, write position papers, talk about their worldview…is they want you to examine it and then render an approval of it. I have been INVITED to examine Sen. Obama’s worldview and belief system. I’m not an intruder upon it.

    However, I also want to see consistency between words and deeds. If someone simultaneously renounces and embraces a worldview, that gives me pause as to which is real and which is for public consumption. When a pattern evolves, the words don’t match the deeds…I tend to believe the deeds.

    Obama was exposed to Wright, he was uncleansably tainted by the evil, and can thus never be President, because he’s somehow, someway, subconsciously maybe, a giant fucking racist that would get all of us white people killed, that’s what you’re saying all this boils down to?

    Of course, that is an extremist expression of the problem. It might be expressed differently. For instance,…Sen. Obama had a choice of a thousand churches, he sought out and fully embraced one in which Marxism and racism were bubbling above the surface. Sen. Obama sought out his most radical professors at college, he was mentored by a member of the CPUSA, “Frank”, he has a shadowy friendship with a fixer Rezco, whose money comes from some unsavory sources, he has a relationship with urban terrorists Ayers and Dorhn, his father was a socialist…and he has the furthest left voting record.

    These things don’t individually describe or define him…but in combination, they paint a picture of the type of worldview or belief system that he may be comfortable with.

    Levi, I have no interest in socialism or any extreme left or extreme right tilt to the country. Sen. Obama is not only comfortable with extreme left worldviews, he has embraced them throughout his life.

    This plays well with you, because it aligns with your worldview.

    There’s no way that Obama could have taken away any of the positive ideas and notions from his church and his faith, right?

    Sure. Are you saying that no Republican has any good traits…or are you saying that even though they may have traits you think are admirable…on balance you disagree with their worldview?

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  179. Okay buddy, now you’re just being a shit. We were talking about the 9-11 quote, specifically, and the context surrounding that quote.

    No, Levi…I’m not. You can’t take his comment in a vacuum, as you are trying to do…and suggest that his entire litany of racist comments have no part in understanding his frame of reference.

    When he says We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority are you suggesting he means that HE does? Let’s not be disingenuous.

    He uses the royal “we” to talk about America. White America. The people who “run the country” who make up the “culture”. He divorces himself and his congregation from the royal “we”…by making it obvious that America is to blame…and America is run by white supremacists…not the congregationists.

    Look at it, all by itself, free from the confusing and distracting clutter you insist on pairing it with that prevents your frail, feeble mind from grasping that he isn’t referring to ‘white government,’ but to all of us;

    Well, my mind may be frail and feeble…but, I still think you are myopic on the topic. You can’t separate out those things that “confuse and distract” your advanced mind, they certainly don’t confuse and distract mine. It provides context. It provides depth and breadth to the statement.

    Do you honestly believe that Rev. Wright blames his congregation for sponsoring racism against blacks? Or is he pointing a finger at the “white people who run the country”?

    Do you see that? That’s the real context, ‘we’ is the real context, not a handful of other quotes taken from a bunch of different sermons about a bunch of different topics delivered over the course of a few years. Stop trying to cheat.

    No, Levi…it’s a continuing theme, not a one-off idea. Do you really believe that Rev. Wright blames black Americans for decisions on bombing Japan? Does that make even the slightest bit of sense to you? He absolves black America from that decision, because “white people run the country”. You need the vacuum to parse the words and dilute the impact.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  180. cfbleachers, you are doing yeoman work showing that Levi pays no attention to his own writings.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  181. You don’t think it’s a little much to refer to something like this as a ‘conviction?’

    @143 Levi:
    Obama did say that words count. He’s a man of his beliefs, no? Don’t you think he made this decision on his own? No one forced it on him. Again… hypocrisy or a lack of consistency.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  182. But his campaign has severely limited inquiry, access and response to questions that might shed light on those subjects. The deadwood media is in his pocket, so we can expect nothing of value there.

    Total bullshit. He was just answering questions about precisely those things on TV, on Monday. Didn’t he give a speech about race and Wright? What questions are left to be asked that he hasn’t answered, to your satisfaction? Why didn’t you watch him on CNN?

    From what I understand, Sen. Clinton was there as well. Did you learn about her worldview and belief system…by listening to her words?

    She’s a hunter, don’t you know? And a faith-based, down home, country girl at heart. After all…she SAID she was.

    Some poor dolts still look at her actions…as opposed to her pre-scripted words to evaluate the credibility of her responses. Imagine that.

    I didn’t realize that prepared responses were all we were supposed to look at, they are so revealing. Just ask the Tigress of Tuzla.

    What does Hillary Clinton have to do with anything we were talking about? I know she was there, too, and I half-watched her while playing Scrabble because she’s the most boring person I’ve ever seen on TV. But that’s besides the point, weren’t we talking about Obama here?

    I have been INVITED to examine Sen. Obama’s worldview and belief system. I’m not an intruder upon it.

    You’re not even doing that though, you’re examining Wright’s, at least you’re pretending to, and then inferring a bunch of things about Obama based on that. You don’t care about what Obama has to say about himself, whenever he tries to talk more about it for the likes of people such as yourself, you don’t even listen to what he says and simply insist that’s it’s some slick-tongued ‘prepared’ response. Like CNN slipped Obama all the questions they were going to ask him.

    These things don’t individually describe or define him…but in combination, they paint a picture of the type of worldview or belief system that he may be comfortable with.

    Why are you so vague? What is this ‘type of worldview’ that you fear Obama is ‘comfortable with?’ Black supremacy? Totalitarian communism? This ‘picture’ that you’ve painted is worthless, it doesn’t take Obama, the man, himself, into account whatsoever, and certainly leaves out his clearly stated and explicit denunciations of what you’ve ‘painted.’ I don’t dispute that you can find out something out about a candidate by the company they keep, but you are taking it to an extreme in this situation, assuming the worst at every unknowable hypothetical, then repeating the same vague, nonsensical accusations about Obama based on all of that… well, nothingness.

    Sure. Are you saying that no Republican has any good traits…or are you saying that even though they may have traits you think are admirable…on balance you disagree with their worldview?

    I couldn’t bring myself to call anything Republicans have been doing since I start paying attention admirable, but yes, I’m aware that Republicans can have good traits. Which is more than what any of you seem to think about Rev. Wright, the anti-American Jew-hating racist that wants me and my family dead, hey just like the terrorists!

    Levi (76ef55)

  183. Obama did say that words count. He’s a man of his beliefs, no? Don’t you think he made this decision on his own? No one forced it on him. Again… hypocrisy or a lack of consistency.

    Yeah, but it’s not like he swore to Christ that he was never going to wear flag pin again.

    And honestly, whether or not one chooses to wear a flap pin is a campaign issue that demonstrates a lack of consistency? Please, grow up.

    Levi (76ef55)

  184. What does Hillary Clinton have to do with anything we were talking about? I know she was there, too, and I half-watched her while playing Scrabble because she’s the most boring person I’ve ever seen on TV. But that’s besides the point, weren’t we talking about Obama here?

    I thought we were talking about how to evaluate candidates. Isn’t she a candidate? You seem to want everyone to take Sen. Obama at his word, and then…only at his word on prepared speeches and responses.

    You listen intently to the guy you are already in the bag for, but not to anything the other candidates have prepared and pre-packaged. Sounds like an echo chamber to me.

    Why not simply give all the candidates…in fact, every politician the same benefit that you accord to your favorite candidate. Only listen to their stump speeches, and how they respond to softball questions and puff pieces in the deadwood media. Not much critical thinking involved, but it should keep your blood pressure in check.

    Why are you so vague?

    I didn’t think I was. Perhaps it was too subtle to invoke his friendship with Ayers, Dorhn, “Frank”, his marxist professors, Brzezinski, Malley, Daddy Obama, Rezco.

    What is this ‘type of worldview’ that you fear Obama is ‘comfortable with?’ Black supremacy? Totalitarian communism?

    You suggest fear, I’m not afraid of socialism or communism, nor am I afraid of class warfare in general or racial warfare. I just don’t think they are healthy for our country and have no interest in seeing them advanced in any sustained or meaningful way.

    Not even an apologist for every Obama misstep could possibly suggest that he doesn’t have a history with flirting with radical leftist notions his entire life. The question becomes, how ingrained are those notions. He also has seemingly embraced black liberation theo-politics. Certainly his attachment to Rev. Wright goes beyond a minimalist relationship that you have tried to portray.

    This ‘picture’ that you’ve painted is worthless, it doesn’t take Obama, the man, himself, into account whatsoever, and certainly leaves out his clearly stated and explicit denunciations of what you’ve ‘painted.’

    Quite the contrary, Levi. My “picture” of Sen. Obama is fuller, deeper and more layered than the apologia you set up for him. I’m looking at the whole man, researching his past, his likes and dislikes, his positions, his statements and his prepared speeches and programmed answers. You wish to eliminate the inquiries…as well you should. That’s where the inconsistencies and deeper questions come from. He runs from them as well…so, you are in proper company.

    I don’t dispute that you can find out something out about a candidate by the company they keep, but you are taking it to an extreme in this situation, assuming the worst at every unknowable hypothetical, then repeating the same vague, nonsensical accusations about Obama based on all of that… well, nothingness.

    More than the company he keeps…the company he seeks. The company he embraces. The worldview which is extreme and divisive…would drive many away. It drove him to embrace it. Yes, that’s an issue that needs further exploration for me…not powderpuff questioning from a deadwood media in his pocket.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  185. @164

    “I’m an atheist, but I’m infinitely more comfortable with the way that Barack Obama talks about his religion than George Bush and his fellow Republicans talk about theirs.” -Levi

    So glad you brought this up. Barack’s religion is obviously the fluid faith, sort of interpreted by Levi and Obamabots day to day. But GWB and faith? Evil, sinister.

    Levi. If the radical black snippets by Rev. Wright don’t bother you, clearly you acknowledge the obvious: Trinity United has been a calculated 20-year project for Barack Hussein Obama, one designed to help him build his base. Using the church, and its people. Duplicitous and very, very smarmy.

    Vermont Neighbor (629f2e)

  186. Okay buddy, now you’re just being a shit. We were talking about the 9-11 quote, specifically, and the context surrounding that quote.

    No, Levi…I’m not. You can’t take his comment in a vacuum, as you are trying to do…and suggest that his entire litany of racist comments have no part in understanding his frame of reference.

    When he says We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority are you suggesting he means that HE does? Let’s not be disingenuous.

    He uses the royal “we” to talk about America. White America. The people who “run the country” who make up the “culture”. He divorces himself and his congregation from the royal “we”…by making it obvious that America is to blame…and America is run by white supremacists…not the congregationists.

    Look at it, all by itself, free from the confusing and distracting clutter you insist on pairing it with that prevents your frail, feeble mind from grasping that he isn’t referring to ‘white government,’ but to all of us;

    Well, my mind may be frail and feeble…but, I still think you are myopic on the topic. You can’t separate out those things that “confuse and distract” your advanced mind, they certainly don’t confuse and distract mine. It provides context. It provides depth and breadth to the statement.

    Do you honestly believe that Rev. Wright blames his congregation for sponsoring racism against blacks? Or is he pointing a finger at the “white people who run the country”?

    Do you see that? That’s the real context, ‘we’ is the real context, not a handful of other quotes taken from a bunch of different sermons about a bunch of different topics delivered over the course of a few years. Stop trying to cheat.

    No, Levi…it’s a continuing theme, not a one-off idea. Do you really believe that Rev. Wright blames black Americans for decisions on bombing Japan? Does that make even the slightest bit of sense to you? He absolves black America from that decision, because “white people run the country”. You need the vacuum to parse the words and dilute the impact.

    Ugh, how am I supposed to respond to this? You’re actually telling me that a bunch of wholly unrelated comments from 2007 provide the context to a very specific and non-confusing statement about 9-11 uttered in 2001. What kind of reasoning is that? Wright talks about problems caused by white government, so Wright must only talk about those problems? If he’s always railing against the white government and doesn’t refrain from naming or labeling it as such specifically, why does he say ‘we’ and not ‘white government’ in the passage from his 9-11 sermon? He’s trying to trick people? What?

    Please, just tell me with a straight face that your concept of ‘context’ includes anything anybody says six years prior to or before saying something. Is that really what you’re saying? You’re supposed to be one of the smart ones around here?

    Levi (76ef55)

  187. Levi, it is getting hilarious that you are completely unable to even notice your own inability to apply your own commentary to yourself. Your hypocrisy is so brazen, your statements so contradictory from one sentence to another, when they are not completely incoherent, that it got obvious long ago that you just make this stuff up minute to minute.

    You completely lack any principles, ideas, practical solutions or even coherent points of view. Its just random bile.

    Obama is definitely your candidate. The empty suit.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  188. I thought we were talking about how to evaluate candidates. Isn’t she a candidate? You seem to want everyone to take Sen. Obama at his word, and then…only at his word on prepared speeches and responses.

    You listen intently to the guy you are already in the bag for, but not to anything the other candidates have prepared and pre-packaged. Sounds like an echo chamber to me.

    Why not simply give all the candidates…in fact, every politician the same benefit that you accord to your favorite candidate. Only listen to their stump speeches, and how they respond to softball questions and puff pieces in the deadwood media. Not much critical thinking involved, but it should keep your blood pressure in check.

    No, we were talking about Barack Obama and how you incessantly complain that we don’t know enough about him but never bother to actually find anything out. You changed the subject because it exposes the depth of your intellectual curiosity about the man, which I estimate to be virtually non-existent. I would think that an open-minded person would at the very least be interested in what Obama has to say about issues of race and religion since that’s all you’ve been criticizing him for and speculating about for months.

    I know Hillary’s a shitty politician, she had her chance with me and I judge her to be shitty. She actually referred to her religion as ‘my Judeo-Christian faith tradition,’ and my eyes rolled all the way back into my brain. She uses lots of words to say nothing.

    I watch McCain every chance I get. He was just on Hardball for the full hour last night, but I’ll bet you skipped that, too?

    You suggest fear, I’m not afraid of socialism or communism, nor am I afraid of class warfare in general or racial warfare. I just don’t think they are healthy for our country and have no interest in seeing them advanced in any sustained or meaningful way.

    Not even an apologist for every Obama misstep could possibly suggest that he doesn’t have a history with flirting with radical leftist notions his entire life. The question becomes, how ingrained are those notions. He also has seemingly embraced black liberation theo-politics. Certainly his attachment to Rev. Wright goes beyond a minimalist relationship that you have tried to portray

    So what are these radical leftist notions? Are they anything like what Wright says? What are you talking about? Nothing specific, that’s for sure. More innuendo and speculation. All these fears you have about what Obama might think can be easily dismissed if you examine what he says and what he’s done, but you don’t want to dismiss the fear. Fear is what motivates Republican politics. You don’t want to get too specific about your fears of the black candidate’s nefarious black influences that would force him to implement some sort of radical black agenda if he got elected because you’ll sound like crazy racists, so you’re purposefully vague. ‘Something will happen, that’s for sure!’ is all you’re willing to say, but in the game of politics and manipulation of bottom-feeding idiots, that’s all you need. Unwarranted and misdirected fear and suggestion is a lethal political combo, and your side has mastered it.

    Quite the contrary, Levi. My “picture” of Sen. Obama is fuller, deeper and more layered than the apologia you set up for him. I’m looking at the whole man, researching his past, his likes and dislikes, his positions, his statements and his prepared speeches and programmed answers. You wish to eliminate the inquiries…as well you should. That’s where the inconsistencies and deeper questions come from. He runs from them as well…so, you are in proper company.

    That’s a laugh, I’ve seen the way you talk about Obama, you don’t know a fucking thing about him. You obviously didn’t care enough to watch him on TV field questions about these monumental concerns and greivances that you claim to have with him, but already dismiss everything he said as some rehearsed, insincere lie, and you didn’t even give him a chance. I’m just supposed to trust that you’re diligently researching Obama, when you can’t even discuss with me his most recent comments on this pretend Rev. Wright issue?

    More than the company he keeps…the company he seeks. The company he embraces. The worldview which is extreme and divisive…would drive many away. It drove him to embrace it. Yes, that’s an issue that needs further exploration for me…not powderpuff questioning from a deadwood media in his pocket.

    Embrace what? Black liberation theology? Being racist against whites? How does he embrace it? What has he done to advance black liberation theology in Chicago, in Illinois, in the United States? If you go to someone’s church, do you embrace that person’s ideology automatically, even if you explicitly say you don’t? Could you be any more vague or full of shit?

    Levi (76ef55)

  189. Please, just tell me with a straight face that your concept of ‘context’ includes anything anybody says six years prior to or before saying something. Is that really what you’re saying? You’re supposed to be one of the smart ones around here?

    Levi, you apparently are not familiar with string theory or “M” theory. You speak as if connectivity flows in a one way time dimension.

    I’m sorry to disappoint you, but connectivity runs along numerous pathways. While events take place along a chronological continuum, TALKING about events may arise at any time after they have taken place.

    Thus, Rev. Wright might speak of Hiroshima in 2001, 2006, 2007…he may speak of racism in any of those years or others. His theme remains the same throughout, however.

    The country is racist, it has been run by white supremacist racists, it still is run by white supremacist racists and ….(fill in the event) is “PROOF” of white supremacist racism, class warfare to keep “us” down, …his use of the royal “we” obviously confuses you…but, it doesn’t confuse his targeted audience. (nor, do I suspect, …anyone else here.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  190. So what are these radical leftist notions? Are they anything like what Wright says?

    Well, there’s that unrepentant Underground Bomber and his wife that Obama pals around with. Is that not radically leftist enough for you?

    Steverino (e00589)

  191. No, we were talking about Barack Obama and how you incessantly complain that we don’t know enough about him but never bother to actually find anything out.

    In actual fact, we were talking about candidates in general, but if you would like to switch to this, that’s fine.

    I think we have found out quite a bit. Look, he’s a gifted orator and prepares well when he knows what’s coming. He seems to get a bit flummoxed when he isn’t prepared for a hardball question. Luckily for him, the MetaStasisMedia has been in the bag for him and he hasn’t faced much in the way of difficult questions.

    His thin resume’ and his open flirtation with radical leftism and anti-Americanism have gone pretty much unexamined by our deadwood drifters. They are shirking their duties to our public trust…and if you are right…they are doing your man a grave injustice, not to mention our information stream, which they have been raping for 40 years. (as an aside, the NYTimes is the leading necrosis arm of the MetaStasisMedia…and they are falling off the deadwood tree, looking to imminently debride yet another 100 dead cells according to Instapundit)

    You changed the subject because it exposes the depth of your intellectual curiosity about the man, which I estimate to be virtually non-existent.

    The subject remains the same, as far as I can tell, you simply have difficulty applying it across the spectrum. My intellectual curiousity is indeed aroused…because I’m wondering how anyone could have been in favor of someone, who had virtually no background.

    It’s as if a million Levi’s all announced that they are in favor of blowfish for dinner every night. Have you ever tasted blowfish? Um…no. Have you ever smelled blowfish? Um…no. Do you know the texture of blowfish? Um…no. Have you even seen a blowfish in person? Um…no. But, we like the IDEA of blowfish. You have predetermined that no matter what it smells, tastes, looks or feels like…you’re going to like it.

    I would think that an open-minded person would at the very least be interested in what Obama has to say about issues of race and religion since that’s all you’ve been criticizing him for and speculating about for months.

    Interested? Sure. I saw and read his speech. I saw and read his “renouncements” of Farrakhan and Wright. If you have something specific you think adds to those “words”, please feel free to discuss them. I’ve seen none from you, I’ve seen none from him that answer any key questions that still linger.

    So what are these radical leftist notions? Are they anything like what Wright says? What are you talking about? Nothing specific, that’s for sure.

    Are you unfamiliar with Ayers and Dorhn? Are you unfamiliar with the Kos Kidz? Are you unfamiliar with Chomsky? Are you unfamiliar with Ward Churchill?? Are you unfamiliar with the hard left’s position on Hamas? Israel? Castro?

    Are you familiar with Malley? Malley’s father? How about Brzezinski? Anthony Lake? McPeak?

    All these fears you have about what Obama might think can be easily dismissed if you examine what he says and what he’s done, but you don’t want to dismiss the fear.

    You keep speaking of fear. Nobody is afraid of Sen. Obama, they simply want to have some questions answered…not powderpuff questions, real questions.

    And you keep going back to what he “said”, but you won’t apply that same criteria to any other politician. What about what Hillary says…will that make all the questions about her evaporate?

    Levi, understand this…what Sen. Obama says about his own positions, is necessarily going to put him in the most favorable light. It’s what he DOES that matters, it’s what he responds when the question is tougher, he’s not pre-digested a soundbite response…that’s when we will see what he’s all about.

    Fear is what motivates Republican politics.

    Yes, I heard that. Republicans cling to guns and religion. That went over big in Pennsylvania, your guy ought to keep going with that theme, it’s a winner.

    You don’t want to get too specific about your fears of the black candidate’s nefarious black influences that would force him to implement some sort of radical black agenda if he got elected because you’ll sound like crazy racists, so you’re purposefully vague.

    I thought it was you guys who called “Condaskeeza” Rice and Colin Powell and Justice Thomas “uncle Toms” and other epithets. Who is it that’s afraid of blacks ascending to powerful positions again?

    It’s not the “black” part of liberation theo-politics that is offensive…it’s the racist and class warfare Marxism that’s offensive. Embracing racism is problematic for any candidate for the Presidency. Embracing anti-Americanism…is simply a deal breaker.

    ‘Something will happen, that’s for sure!’ is all you’re willing to say, but in the game of politics and manipulation of bottom-feeding idiots, that’s all you need.

    You mean like “blood for oil”? A “quagmire in Afghanistan” I agree…politics and bottom-feeding of idiots.

    How about, “the government invented AIDS to kill blacks”…politics and bottom feeding for idiots?

    How about, “the war was all about Halliburton getting money”,… politics and bottom feeding for idiots?

    How about “Bush lied about the information intentionally (the same information which the Clinton administration is on record as passing to the very same people)…politics and bottom feeding for idiots?

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  192. Levi, you apparently are not familiar with string theory or “M” theory. You speak as if connectivity flows in a one way time dimension.

    I’m sorry to disappoint you, but connectivity runs along numerous pathways. While events take place along a chronological continuum, TALKING about events may arise at any time after they have taken place.

    Thus, Rev. Wright might speak of Hiroshima in 2001, 2006, 2007…he may speak of racism in any of those years or others. His theme remains the same throughout, however.

    The country is racist, it has been run by white supremacist racists, it still is run by white supremacist racists and ….(fill in the event) is “PROOF” of white supremacist racism, class warfare to keep “us” down, …his use of the royal “we” obviously confuses you…but, it doesn’t confuse his targeted audience. (nor, do I suspect, …anyone else here.

    Moron, you can speak thematically about something over a number of years, that doesn’t mean that every single fucking thing you have ever said becomes retroactively about that topic somehow. You think mentioning quantum physics impresses me? It only belies how pathetic your argument is. ‘I’m not wrong about this, you just don’t get string theory!’ Yeah fucking right.

    According to you, ‘we’ means ‘white America,’ and I am the confused one? I never learned that lesson about pronouns that says you can make them mean any specific thing or group for the sake of convenience in a political argument, I guess. Stop trying to fool everyone, you must know how full of shit you are. ‘We’ means white America. 5 days after 9-11, like the 12 times it’s uttered in the quote, ‘we’ means white America. Because Wright doesn’t have any time in his life to talk about anything besides his crazy racism. And time flows both forwards… and backwards? Or some shit? Don’t get the string theory thing one bit. All so ridiculous, all so typical.

    Levi (76ef55)

  193. Grow up and clean up your mouth, Levi. Try to pretend to be an adult.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  194. If he lives to a hundred, that distinction will never attain.

    Another Drew (f9dd2c)

  195. Ok, Levi…we seem to have spent your daily ration of rational behavior, so I’ll just let you relax for a while.

    You can’t seem to grasp spatial-temporal reasoning, so attempting to work with anything other than very linear, limited, and very literal concepts …it seems are all you can manage.

    You don’t seem to know about the royal or editorial “we” and its usage.

    It must be frustrating to have such a limited frame of reference and that can lead to your potty mouth and eye-bulding, spittle-flecked rages. It’s best that we just let you calm down a bit.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  196. Bravo cfbleachers. Levi, yet another pathetic performance, but that is all we expect from you.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  197. daleyrocks

    We have the Bill Maher daily pound of flesh for athiest leftists to work with now, it seems to never end for these guys.

    http://mt.pajamasmedia.com/xpress/richardminiter/2008/04/16/the_pope_visits_dc.php

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  198. daleyrocks

    We also have the lowdown on Obama not having the courage to take on tough questions…from SLATE of all places.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2188582/

    The McCain tour also aims to draw a contrast with Barack Obama. (They already assume he’s going to win the nomination.) The GOP’s attack will boil down to the accusation that Obama is a big phony. The Democrat gives them an opening: Obama talks about how he goes in front of hostile audiences, but he doesn’t really do it much. He heralds his bipartisan appeal and talent for bringing people together, but his track record on these fronts is thin. He talks about how his administration will put its negotiations over policy on C-SPAN, but he has run a conventionally conservative campaign, keeping press access relatively low. When his top economic aide (and former Slate contributor), Austan Goolsbee, got into trouble, the campaign hid him under a bushel rather than offering him to reporters to answer questions. “Obama talks about doing these things,” says a McCain aide, “he just doesn’t do them.” With big acts of accessibility and reaching out beyond his party ranks, McCain hopes to show as well as tell that Obama’s promises to do the same are empty.

    cfbleachers (4040c7)

  199. Geez, what a thread.

    Paul (4ca58a)

  200. Ok, Levi…we seem to have spent your daily ration of rational behavior, so I’ll just let you relax for a while.

    You can’t seem to grasp spatial-temporal reasoning, so attempting to work with anything other than very linear, limited, and very literal concepts …it seems are all you can manage.

    I can’t grasp your reasoning? All you said is ‘You don’t understand string theory.’ That’s reasoning? Look at this sentence you wrote: You speak as if connectivity flows in a one way time dimension. What am I supposed to do but laugh my ass off after readng something like that? What is a sentence like that supposed to convince me of?

    You don’t seem to know about the royal or editorial “we” and its usage.

    This isn’t ‘reasoning,’ either. ‘I’m smart, you’re dumb!’ Yeah right. Why don’t you explain to me what the difference is, and how this supports what you’re saying instead of just scrambling up your high horse and insisting I’ll never be able to understand anything?

    It must be frustrating to have such a limited frame of reference and that can lead to your potty mouth and eye-bulding, spittle-flecked rages. It’s best that we just let you calm down a bit.

    That’s right, I swore! And I called you a moron! I’ll probably do it again, especially if you squeeze out another performance like this one! What’s the big deal?

    Levi (76ef55)

  201. We also have the lowdown on Obama not having the courage to take on tough questions…from SLATE of all places.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2188582/

    The McCain tour also aims to draw a contrast with Barack Obama. (They already assume he’s going to win the nomination.) The GOP’s attack will boil down to the accusation that Obama is a big phony. The Democrat gives them an opening: Obama talks about how he goes in front of hostile audiences, but he doesn’t really do it much. He heralds his bipartisan appeal and talent for bringing people together, but his track record on these fronts is thin. He talks about how his administration will put its negotiations over policy on C-SPAN, but he has run a conventionally conservative campaign, keeping press access relatively low. When his top economic aide (and former Slate contributor), Austan Goolsbee, got into trouble, the campaign hid him under a bushel rather than offering him to reporters to answer questions. “Obama talks about doing these things,” says a McCain aide, “he just doesn’t do them.” With big acts of accessibility and reaching out beyond his party ranks, McCain hopes to show as well as tell that Obama’s promises to do the same are empty.

    LOL. And like that, we’re on to a different topic. I hurt your little internet feelings by calling you a moron and now you can’t talk to me anymore, even though we were getting into real exciting territory like the intersection of grammar and quantum mechanics! Oh please come back, and explain to me how physics changes the meaning of pronouns!!!

    Levi (76ef55)

  202. #199:

    What’s the big deal?

    Well, it certainly ain’t you since it’s pretty obvious that your ability to discriminate between reasoned argument and a three week dead hake is nonexistent.

    EW1(SG) (84e813)

  203. Levi wrote to cfbleachers, who took on the thankless task of trying to educate him:

    I hurt your little internet feelings by calling you a moron

    Oh, come on. That’s about as likely as him being hurt by being called an infidel.

    L.N. Smithee (05081b)


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