Letters to the Editor
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Thanks Gary, and how does this translate into success at the polls?
Being right or correct does not win elections!
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You are missing the point
I think that the writer is missing the point of people's concerns over Rev. Wright. In the candidacy of Obama we are being asked to believe that he has some innate judgement that will overcome his total lack experience to run the greatest power on earth.
To me this is not about Rev. Wright, but about the judgement of someone who had to on some level agree with the reverend's comments. If Obama disagreed we would expect that he would use his judgement and decide to pray in another Church.
It is one thing to feel you don't have to wave the flag to prove to anyone you are a " patriot". It is quite another to have a mentor who states the government gave some of it's citizens aids!!
It is really sad to watch the democrats throw away election after election.
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an extremely banal set of observations...
...brilliantly rendered.
Bravo, Mr. Kamiya, for saying, yet again, that which really should be beyond elementary by this point.
You write the truth and for that no doubt will likewise be pilloried, but that's the country we live in. A country of fat, self-absorbed infants posturing as adults.
(Wow, that's very bitter of me, I know, and I'm not proud of that bitterness, but man, it's so hard to rise above.)
One quibble, though. You write that patriotism has become more of an opiate than religion. I'd probably argue that in fact, patriotism is religion, for what it's worth.
Anyway, thanks for writing so eloquently and saliently about something we should by now be light years beyond.
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@ Kevin Cooley
That's kind of a non-sequitur, isn't it?
What does "winning at the poles" have to do with this essay?
Is the author's goal in writing this essay to deliver some kind of electoral victory?
I mean no disrespect, but I don't understand the nature of the question.
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Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Patriot!!
Gary, although I know this wasn’t really the focus of your article, I must take this opportunity to address a point you mention and one that so many right wing pundants have highlighted in their arguments against Rev. Wright, and that is the sermon that expressed Rev. Wright’s feelings that the AIDS virus could have been created by the government and unleashed on the Black Community purposefully. Everyone, even those of you who seem to present yourselves as more open minded regarding issues of race, like to point to this particular sermon as it sounds so outlandish as to be considered particularly extremist. Maybe I’d feel that way as well if I didn’t know this country’s history. I find it quite disturbing that the right wing pundants don’t know the history themselves, but maybe they do and it just doesn’t fit their particular means at this point. I’m more disturbed by the fact that the history rarely makes it into the discussion at all, even among more liberal pundants.
Please research the Tuskegee Experiment and learn how from 1932 to 1972 the U.S. Public Health Service sponsored a “scientific experiment” whereby 399 African-American men, infected with syphilis, were treated like laboratory animals, were not told they had the disease, were not treated, were left to infect their wives (40 wives were infected) and their children (19 children were born with the disease), all to determine how syphilis affected blacks in comparison to whites.
Learn the history - start with this link to the Tuskegee University website: http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586
I believe that African-Americans of Rev. Wright generation are extremely patriotic. I don't know that I could be if I'd lived through what they did.
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@ Kevin Cooley
And moreover, what does winning elections avail us if it comes at the cost of keeping silent about what is right or correct or, worse still, losing one's sense that there is such a thing?
Or perhaps I misunderstand you.
Would you mind elaborating?
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The Wright Controversy
Is some of the silliest star spangled stupidity to be seen in some time. It's better than Ringling Bros., only there's no bear on a unicycle, which is kind of disappointing.
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@ blkfmlfortyplus
Thank you!
I almost mentioned that myself, but didn't feel comfortable doing so because I'm not knowledgeable enough on the basics.
I appreciate that you did.
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Well Done, Gary
Gary,
I salute your courage, because of the environment this article is being launched in will no doubt send a lot of e-sewage your way. Our country has become a very sad, pathetic satire of what it was supposed to be, and now the chickens really have come home to roost, dawn their lapel pins, and march off to their keyboards, talk radio microphones and appointments in the Bush administration to help steer this once honorable nation off the nearest cliff.
I'm disgusted by the paranoia and ignorance of the American people, who have once again have found a straw enemy to distract from the fact that we've created a country that is about to collapse from its own self-righteous greed, materialism and military aggression that will blow back in ways no one will have a clue how to deal with.
Wright's rants were based in very obvious truth, and it's no surprise that conservatives, who are not only profoundly ignorant to what happens around them but profoundly cowardly, had a fit about it and are using their usual blather to beat up on the first presidential candidate who shows both intelligence and leadership in decades.
I admire your piece and your courage in posting it, Mr. Kamiya. Hopefully it will inspire others to stay silent no longer.
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Thank you
. . . for the thoughtful article. I will share it. Hopefully those running for office will read and think about it.
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So,
Let's put the idea of "deserving" up against the idea of "attack". Did the US deserve to be attacked by the 9/11 bombers? In the eyes of the bombers it did. And in the eyes of some others, too. But not in the eyes of most Americans. On the other hand, did the Iraqis "deserve" to be bombed five years ago, for days and days? Which Iraqis? The population? The people in the streets? What had they done to "deserve" it? Or were they just unlucky? All of you who can't stand Rev. Wright's ideas that the US "deserved" a terrorist attack, do you think that the Iraqis "deserved" a war?