Letters to the Editor
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Great Article! Absolutely, Positively Great
Dear Gary,
I know you are gonna get hammered for this piece. Let me say I think it is absolutely, positively great -- one of the best I've read about this silly "controversy." I've have linked to your commentary from a couple of blogs that I help maintain.
Good think nobody from San Francisco is running for president this year -- Rev. Cecil Williams, longtime distinguished pastor of San Francisco's Glide Memorial Methodist Church, among many others, would have had to be thrown under the bus!
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OK, I'll bite.
I posted this on a War room thread, but I thought this would be a better place for it:
I've seen the Rev. Wright thing on YouTube several times, including the longer bits of the sermon that add more (gasp) context to what he said, and I have to ask: What did he say that was so wrong?
-It has been well documented that the government was sending drugs into the black neighborhoods of this country.
-US funded-terrorism did indeed come back and bite us in the ass on 9/11.
And that's just what is well known. Considering the bullshit the US government has historically put it's black population through (including the The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment amoung many others), is it really that difficult to understand why a black man from Rev. Wright's generation would say "God damn America" when faced with hypocritical patriotism from the mouthbreathers?
What did he say that was wrong?
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uh, I wave the flag
"That honor belongs to the flag-wavers, the patriots -- "the real Americans."
Wait a minute! I'm a flag waving American; I love my country as much as anyone can love their country. I take exception to the notion that waving our flag, placing my hand over my heart, and getting emotional when the Star Spangled Banner plays is a bad thing. I feel blessed to have been born into this country, and this culture. Yep, this country has many problems, our current leadership being the biggest one, and that is why people like myself are trying SO HARD to get a man like Obama elected, so he can begin to turn things around and get us, as a nation, back on track. The nation isn't the problem, the leadership is.
This is not the time to dig in your heels and refuse to wear an American pin on your lapel, or put your hand over your heart. For God's sake, we CAN LOSE THE ELECTION over trivial crap like this. Sure, win this battle over ideology, but you will lose the war, and the old red faced guy with the American flag will win in November. Is that what you want?? Wake up, people, and smell the coffee! It MATTERS to most Americans to look like you care for your country. It got GW into the white house, and I believe that he, Cheney, and all those other goons don't have a clue what patriotism is. It's kind of like wearing a suit and tie to an interview. Is it stupid? Probably, but it shows you cared enough about presentation when you applied for the job. So, right now, the American flag is part of the presentation. Do not underestimate how that resonates with the average Joe American.
I feel totally outclassed by the other posters here; I cannot write well, nor is my vocabulary extended. But I know what's going on in Washington, I know how the Contitution is being trampled, and how science is being buried, and how corporations are running the show. This is a make or break election-- and we must do everything in our power to win in November. Wanna win? Then act like you love this country.
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@ JD
"We assume that Rev. Wright couldn't possibly be Obama's spiritual advisor on one hand and say things that run contrary to his political beliefs on the other. My question is: why?"
Because manichaean thinking and facile binaries are all many are capable of.
Because serious thinking is taxing and most can't be bothered or lack the time or the foundations or whatever.
It's the triumph of anti-intellectualism.
I once saw a documentary about Al-Jazeera and it was so fascinating to me to see that I, as an "intellectual" or "cosmopolitan" or whatever you want to call me, had more in common with the journalists there, who live in a place that's about as alien to my experience as can be (except perhaps genuine "traditional" societies), and yet I felt a far deeper bond with them than with many in my own country.
It's another deep divide: the educated v. the uneducated, the cosmopolitan v. the non-cosmopolitan.
The "fundamentalists" in the Arab world have so, so much in common with our own "fundamentalists," i.e., those who see the world in black and white.
We all have that inclination, of course, but education compels us to move beyond it, to exercise empathy and mind-stretching. Not that education is the only way or anything, but that is what it's designed to do. In esteeming a certain skill set and orientation, it makes possible the transcendence of lines of class, nation, race, gender, etc.
Dangerous stuff.
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@ ann1960
"This is a make or break election-- and we must do everything in our power to win in November. Wanna win? Then act like you love this country."
This is the crux of the dilemma!
You're presenting a view close to the "win at all costs" side of the spectrum, which has merit.
But it also has downsides, especially, imo, longterm.
If the only way we can win is by pretending to be who we're not because it's expected of us, what sort of damage does this do to society?
To me, as a black person, this is precisely the kind of thinking that leads to the tolerance of racism and the persecution of the Jews, etc.
Once you go down that road of pretending for the sake of short-term benefit, you legitimize opinions that might ultimately prove far more destructive than the outcome of one election.
I don't want to just win this election, but I want to win it with a clear mandate.
I don't want a candidate who's beholden to mindless patriotism because this mindless patriotism is itself a deep part of the problem.
As Obama says, he doesn't just want to end this war, but to end the mindset that got us into the war.
That's profound stuff and risky.
He might not be able to pull it off, but at least he presents a model of what that would look like.
It's about telling the truth.
It's about not pandering, at least on this issue.
It's about calling a spade a spade, you know?