Letters to the Editor
Berkeley Poet
Published Letters: 5
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Why Wright Is So Right
[Read the article: Why Jeremiah Wright is so wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought Wright made it clear that his condemnation of America for failing its promises was a damning of government, by definition fallible (as he indicated any government is), for its sins in the eyes of God. It did not seem to me that he was an extremist; it seemed he was someone who has read and understood the Bible and its meanings. I say meanings because Wright made it clear throughout the conversation that culture must be part of the equation since culture determines how we see and hear. In this sense, what the brouhaha over Wright has to say about the prevailing American culture is, definitely, cause for depression, but for reasons having little to do with Jeremiah Wright.
I was enraged when I heard the extended excerpts from Wright's sermons--enraged that he had been so smeared, that his remarks had been so distorted. His sermons did not seem to me extremist, at all. If anything, they seemed conservative, in the true sense of that word--an appeal to conserve the values and traditions of both the Bible and our country, which we have forsaken over and over. I found his conversation and the excerpts of his sermons thought-provoking and challenging. They challenge us to lift ourselves to the better part of our nature, to live up to our promise. He spoke of our treatment of Native Americans, of the Japanese, of blacks and the poor to illustrate his claim that we have not lived up to our promise and that equality remains a myth. I don't think anyone needs to look any farther than the 47 million who live without health insurance to know that this claim is based in reality. What's extreme is the reality, the distance we allow between the ideals we espouse and the many ways we spurn them.
Wright sees the world through, as he put it, the hermeneutics of religion, and this is obviously going to affect his vision of everything. He is clearly learned and steeped in the Bible and history. (As a friend who lives in Chicago pointed out, you don't get into the University of Chicago unless you're very, very smart.) I found myself so compelled by his remarks and the conversation that if I lived in Chicago, I'd go to his church. I'd go just for the mental stimulation. I'm not religious, but I'd go. Wright's rhetorical skills, his ability to shift from one level of diction to another so seamlessly, his gifts as a motivational speaker--all of these seemed so obvious to me as I listened to him that I couldn't imagine anyone, having watched the interview, ever wondering again why Obama would attend Wright's church. One of the things that draws him must be language itself.
I was depressed by the conversation only in this sense: the public dialogue has been so debased that conversations like this rarely occur. Before the conversation was aired, I saw the soundbyte that had been wrested from it that had Chris Matthews screaming Obama would be even more damaged by the interview. (Yes, Chris, if you keep playing the misleading soundbyte and screaming.) After the conversation, I heard Bill Maher make the same point as Matthews and call Wright a dick. (At least Maher's doing a comedy show.)
This is what should be filling all of us with despair.
Jeremiah Wright is wrestling with complicated theological problems. He has spent his ministry trying to unite his church with the world around his church. That he began 41 years ago with 87 people in the congregation and built that number to over 6000 says something about him and his gifts. He is not leading a cult. He is leading people who seek meaning in their lives. I for one admire Obama for choosing such a pastor.
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Obama and blue-collar whites
[Read the article: Some thoughts about West Virginia ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read the other day that Obama's unfavorable support among blue-collar whites had risen by 5%--but so had his favorable support, so it was a wash. So I think it was unwise of the Obama campaign to ignore West Virginia as they did because it feeds the perception that he doesn't care about blue-collar workers, something the Clinton camp is all too eager to seize upon as a truth about Obama.
I find it reprehensible that the Clintons have insinuated that Obama is elitist and unconcerned with the problems that afflict poor whites in this country. Of all the disappointments I have felt in both Clintons (whom I admired deeply before all this began), that is the keenest because it is such naked exploitation for self-gain and because it is obviously hurting the party's chances of success in November.
I think Hillary has every right to stay in the race, and I know her doing so is encouraging to many women of all ages. But that she is using race to bolster her own standings strikes me as so beyond the pale that I can't quite get my mind around it. I keep wondering if those who claim she really is doing everything she can to ensure that Obama can't win in November are right. The more she lets what she KNOWS to be lies and distortions perpetuate themselves at Obama's expense and her gain--and these are vicious, destructive lies and distortions--the more I'm inclined to think the people claiming that are right--she really is maneuvering to be able to run in 2012.
I hope those people and I are wrong. I hope the Clintons aren't that craven. But add to her "hard-working white American" comments her sanctimonious comments at the "Compassion Forum" (where she got San Francisco and elitism into one quick blow), her disingenuous comment on Sixty Minutes about Obama's not being a Muslim as far as she knew, her outrageous claim that the gas tax would save (more) hard-working Americans "billions" but Obama apparently didn't think that meant much, and what is one to think? Craven is as craven does.