Letters to the Editor
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Thanks Gary
for being so damned reasonable! how very refreshing!
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Is this a joke?
But if Wright's "chickens" sermon was unpleasant, the fact is that it was also largely right. He had the bad taste, and the courage, to say exactly what America did not want to hear at that moment. He said that although those who were murdered by terrorists were innocent, America itself was far from innocent. He placed 9/11 in a historical context, instead of pretending that it emerged out of nowhere.
Seriously, I'm not sure if the entire article is some type of sarcastic journalism.
If it’s not, then the author has serious historical and journalist issues to correct.
What do Nagasaki and Hiroshima have to do with 9/11, or Apartheid? Even Osama bin Laden himself didn’t address anything related to Israel for years after 9/11.
There’s no historical context, it’s ranting about showing America in a bad light and indicating we deserved the attack.
From what Wright preached the attack did come out of nowhere, since almost nothing in his sermon is even remotely connected to 9/11.
Exactly how many angry Japanese and Black South Africans were part of the 9/11 attack?
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Well worth pondering
The points are worth pondering for a nation, still grieving and resolving its responses to 9-11.
One of the illuminating points made about Reverend Wright's comments about the "chickens coming home" is that he had seen those words coming from Ambassador Edward Peck whom he had seen on a Fox News program. Wright spoke of his amazement that a white American would speak that truth on a national TV program. See Anderson Cooper's blog at CNN where a longer version of Wright's sermon puts it into a much different context than the short bite that has been circulating.
It features a contibution by Roland Martin and audio:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/21/the-full-story-behind-wright’s-“god-damn-america”-sermon/
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Obama was right
I've listened to several conservative friends opine about how Obama has doomed his campaign by not severing ties with Rev. Wright years ago. What good would that have done? Does anyone really believe the Right wouldn't have dug his Trinity Church membership up in a nanosecond and brought the story to the fore anyway? The only difference would have been that Obama would have been accused of engaging in a cover-up of his past affiliation with Wright, making the whole affair far more damaging.
As for this nation's absurd, adolescent aversion to any questioning of our virtue, Gary hits it right on the screws. Look at the comment boards of mainstream papers like the NY Times after stories like the ones that have run today about reaching 4,000 dead in Iraq. You'll find the most pathetically brain-dead pseudo-patriots you can imagine, spouting the usual mindless lines about Islamo-fascists and Defeatocrats.
The fact is we're a nation bereft of its intellect, like a 14-year old boy on sugar and hormones. We think with our balls and react without reason. Cognition is too much trouble, and God forbid we might have to face the harsh truth that we've brought much of our trouble on ourselves. We can only hope that enough Americans have become grownups after 7 years of the GOP disaster to see past the Fox/Weekly Standard/Free Republic stupidity of this time and put the adults back in charge.
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you know, I don't always agree with what my preacher says
We're two separate people.
If we want to know what Obama thinks about x-y-z- issue, ASK OBAMA.
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yeah, that'll fly, Gary
Yeah. That'll fly. Obama and the liberals telling all of Americans it's their own fault that 3000 of their fellow civilians were incinerated while 90% Of the Muslim world was all happy out in the streets celebrating it.
And if that doesn't work, lay on a big liberal guilt trip about race when Americans are paying 3.25 a gallon to fill up their tanks and praying they don't get a pink slip (if they haven't already).
Great timing indeed! Is it any wonder that liberalism is for all practical purposes extinct.
You guys are just SO self-imploding it's surreal.
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The problem was not the content but the podium
Although you do point out correctly that some of his comments had some roots in reality and continuing racial divide, I just cannot shake off that he was using a religious podium to deliver that sermon. That medium carries a ``sanction from God'' and just as we liberals/progressives do not like Church leaders telling people to vote for Republicans, we should in honesty also detest any such ramblings from a liberal pastor. And there is also the fact that he was clearly campaigning against Sen. Clinton in one of those sermons and I am sorry, but I dont want my tax dollars to go to people with explicit
political goals.
I can go on, but any discussion of whether Wright said the right words or not has to be judged through the lens of whether he said it at the right place or not. In my opinion, his choice of venue makes his message plain wrong no matter what his choice of words are.
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Makeshift patriots
Beating their savage breasts
Makeshift patriots
Beating their Kevlar vests
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Keep it up, Gary, It Helps Republicans
I find Gary's views to be so wrong-headed that it sometimes hard to figure out where to start debating them. On this one, I concluded that it is better for Wright and Gary and all these guys to just let it flow. I don't understand why they are so offended that people actually love America. America is far from perfect and I fully agree that dissent is a key value. I do it myself! But, contempt is not a key value. As long as Democrats pursue a strategy of contempt, they will deservedly lose.
As one specific question to Gary, what policies would he have us pursue that would make our enemies not attack us? The Chinese don't get attacked by Islamic terrorists. Is that because they are somehow more supportive of Islamic people? Or, is it because they more allied with the oppressive regimes favored by the terrorists? For me, I oppose all oppressors and if that means that they don't like us, then I add that to my list of things to be proud of being American.