Letters to the Editor
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Loving America
I don't understand why they are so offended that people actually love America.
There is nothing wrong with loving America. I love America, but I hate the fact that(as George Orwell once said about England) that we are like a family with the wrong members in control.
Crazy Uncles George and Dick have brought the ship of state very close to the rocks and we in America have lived gloriously beyond our means for a long time by means of bullying the rest of the family of nation into accepting the rules that we lay down and using our currency as the international means of exchange.
Now the rest of the world is getting fed up with Uncle George and Uncle Dick and with us for hogging the world's resources and keeping other nations poor.
The Europeans have set up a rival currency and while theirs is increasing in value, ours is going down the tube, meaning that we are paying more and more for the oil that we need to maintain our suburbias, our cars, our heating, and our air conditioning.
All this nonsense about God damn America is just sleight of hand to distract the uneducated proles from asking questions about how George and Dick's policies and their idiotic war is melting down the once mighty dollar into dimes.
Same with flag burning. Although it hardly ever seems to happen, if people do burn the flag it is surely because they believe the government of the day is betraying the ideals of the American revolution--not that they want to abolish America.
Rev. Wright has talked some crap about AIDS being deliberately spread to Blacks. But it is true that White American has only allowed Black America to be part of the family if White American gets to make the ground rules. The Supreme Court ruled Dred Scott less than a hundred years before I was born, and it took a war to get it reversed, and even then organized resistance lasted for another hundred years.
What we need is to work had to ensure that this time around the presidential election is fought on the issues--the crimes of the Republican administration--not on "four legs good, two legs bad" slogans about things that have nothing to do with the Federal Government.
All preachers are crazy, but somehow Americans love them. But we should not be distracted from political issues over a crazy preacher. McCain, strangely enough, seems to have been about the only politician in living history who has denounced people like Falwell and Robertson as "agents of intolerance" and he paid for this once, but it would be strange if he eventually came to power because a Democrat has links with a crazy preacher.
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Absolutely
The furor over Wright's comments is ridiculous. Much of what he said was true and it's about time we talk about race in a way not filled with politically correct platitudes. But Kamiya's assertion that the furor is specific to the political right is completely incorrect. Mainstream media's been front and center from the get go and the Clinton campaign has certainly tried to use it against Obama. I'm still not sure who I'll be voting for in November. I know who it won't be. It won't be Hillary. Obama's speech about Wright last week made him far more appealing to this moderate leaning a little to the left voter.
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Sorry, Obama can't win
and Wright is going to be a big reason why if Obama makes it past the primaries.
Obama can't win PA, MI, FL, OH because of Wright and other issues that make large numbers of Americans nervous.
Write articles about how open-minded you are all you like. It won't matter in the 2008 election. Barack Obama will never be president because he is viewed as weak and unpatriotic. Democrats have learned this lesson time and again but they keep making the same mistake.
I would only vote for Clinton or McCain because BO is weak and unpatriotic.
This is the reality TODAY. Just wait until the 527's get to work.
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For all those wondering about Obama's connection to the Rev...
I encourage anyone who has missed it to read the transcript of Obama's speech in response to the comments of his pastor. Link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/politics/18text-obama.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=ee9b37a72e4cff50&ex=1206072000
He quite eloquently and honestly explains his connection to Rev Wright, and where their two viewpoints and policies differ. The MSM has harped on the point that Obama did not unequivocally dismiss his connection to Wright. I think dismissing Wright and what he stands for would be a mistake.
As Kamiya points out in this article -- no matter how extreme many may feel Wright's comments to be, it is foolish to pretend they simply materialised out of thin air.
Before making snap judgements based on media reports, more people should take the time to read Obama's actual response. Personally, this particular speech more than anything has cemented his candidacy in my mind.
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Review the UCC and then decide
I think it's important that readers come to understand, too, that churches that espouse a liberal religion (not the same as liberal politics, although the folks who like one often like the other too) do NOT tell their parishioners what to think. The whole point is that they should think for themselves--in theological terms, that's the "liberal" part. So Wright speaking from a pulpit is not the "sanction of God"--it's an opportunity for the congregation to think, using spiritual and religious considerations as part of what drives the thinking.
You'd also want to look at the whole sermon, because sermons have structures and arguments that may not be clear from an individual sound bite.
But in any case, is it wrong to ask a congregation even to *think* about American culpability in international politics? Or problematic dynamics between majority and minority culture, particularly where science is concerned? I may not like the excerpts I've read from Wright's sermons, but a liberal religious tradition would ask me to think about those things and reach my own decision about them--not to take anyone's, even a pastor's, word for them.
Somehow I think people from more conservative, authoritarian religious traditions just don't get how liberal religions work. And that makes them unclear on how Obama and Wright might be connected--that is, Wright may have made Obama think. Is that really all that scary?