Letters to the Editor
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Wright is wrong!
Organized religion breeds hate--when will people figure this out. Let's throw all these nutjobs out, once and for all. The US of America should become a thoroughly secular and thoroughly rational place. Our democracy was founded on Enlightenment/secular/rational principles. Now that we know better, let us take those principles to their next logical conclusion. Let's call religion what it is--A BIG FAT LIE! Stop giving tax breaks to religious institutions. Stop using the Bible in government offices all together. Throw the bums out. Anyone that wants to infuse politcal discourse with religion should be laughed at and told to STFU!
There is no difference between the hate-speech of Jeremiah Wright, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Bin Laden--all are asinine and all of them worthy of rejection and denunciation.
I look forward to the day when the President of the United States is not afraid to say "I am an atheist, I piss on religion." And the people cheer!
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The Problem With Logic
Your article was very logical but if logic meant anything to the electorate either Al Gore or John Kerry would be President. If Obama is the candidate the video clips of Wright will be shown over and over and it will affect the outcome of the election. That may not be fair but all the logic in the world won't make it any less true.
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Sure it's right here:
"In fact, the same all-American flag-wavers who called loudest for war against Iraq are now denouncing Wright as a hate-monger and a traitor, and attacking Michelle Obama for saying that only recently has she had reason to feel proud of her country. "
Gary says that flag waivers e.g. patriotic types are angry misguided fools
"They insist that anyone who is not permanently proud of the United States, whose patriotism isn't plastered on his or her face like the frozen smile of a beauty queen waving from a Fourth of July float, is beyond the pale."
Gay says here that patriotism is a binary choice either you are fawing over America (and that's bad) or you're essentially an enemy of the state (and that's good). Also nice touch of Eastern European Jewish history coming from a guy who's about as antizionist as the Arab press ('The Pale').
"Never mind that the glorious results of their debased version of patriotism -- 4,000 American troops dead, a wrecked Iraq, and a greatly strengthened terrorist enemy -- are plain for all to see."
As oppose to what other kind of patriotism. We've already established Gary feels it is an either or proposition.
"You wouldn't expect the Republican Party, Fox News, Bill Kristol or the readers of FreeRepublic to issue any mea culpas -- they don't acknowledge that they've done anything wrong."
No you would not, this is a nonsequitor.
"But the mainstream media's pious tut-tutting over the Wright affair shows that it, too, has learned nothing from its disgraceful post 9/11 performance."
One of these has nothing to do with one another. Does Gary seriously expect us to draw the parallel that NOT claiming the US basically caused and deserved 911 is the same line of thought as criticizing people who do? That quite frankly is either stupid or insane.
"The worst excesses of media groveling -- the flag pins, the instructions not to run anti-U.S. stories -- may be history, but the timorous mind-set remains the same."
Same as what? I would say that the online blogging news world probably runs 80/20 against the war. It's that 20% that actually agrees with 100% of Rev Wright, even the crazy parts. That's just groveling to a different god.
"Its reaction to Wright shows that the American establishment still cowers before the patriotic idol."
No it's a reaction to hate speech. It might be radical liberal anointed and approved PC hate speech but it's still hate speech.
I mean if Gary wants to play these stupid semantic games than I guess we can assert that all those uppity niggers brought lynching down on themselves too, can't we? Oooh but we're not going to do that because that would be un PC.
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@ brunnhilde
brunnhilde- I agree completely. It troubles me to no end that James Dobson and other right wing evangelical leaders are invited to the inner circles of the White House to discuss policy matters. It's this legacy that gives us all pause when something like the Rev. Wright dust-up arises, because we've been conditioned to assume that our politicians don't know the difference between theology and politics.
I do, however, believe that Barack Obama is capable of separating the two and that his political positions are well-reasoned and not informed by divisive polemics.
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Rev. Wright
I'm still trying to figure out what he said that was so bad.
Can someone clear this up for me? He didn't say anything I necessarily disagree with.
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@ blank
No, could you please, in your own words, paraphrase the argument Kamiya is making?
A concise paragraph or two should do the trick.
What you've done there was to equivocate, because you present passages and your responses to them but you fail to offer some sort of coherence.
I'm asking you to demonstrate that you understand Kamiya's argument before offering your own counter-argument.
For instance, "Gary's central argument is that patriotism, or the illusion of patriotism, hampers our ability to make wise policy decisions, and in fact is a contributing factor to our making government making rather poor ones and our ratification therof...To illustrate his point, Gary points to A, B and C as evidence.
I disagree with Gary's conclusion because his evidence fails to address D, E, and F, or because his evidence is faulty, and here's how..."
Something like that, you know?
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brunhilde
It's another deep divide: the educated v. the uneducated, the cosmopolitan v. the non-cosmopolitan.
I agree with you on the anti-intellectualism that has been long promoted by the GOP, the moderate and the extreme, and may I add also, the kind of simplistic attack ads that the Clintons are now embracing.
However, I do take exception to the educated vs the not educated part. In my experience, I have found that even the educated have a profound lack of common sense and common decency that many of the not educated seem to have in abundance. Hell, look at George W. Didn't he go to Yale, and then we have Newt Gingrich who has a PhD in something or the other. Look at the vast numbers of truly educated folk who do vote on pocket book issues and can't see the forest worth of trees. In my travels I have found the least educated that had more common sense and creative ways of surviving that would put many of us to shame, had we to endure the hardships that they go through on a daily basis.
Also, the most cosmopolitan, the very well heeled and well traveled, yes, they only have stamps in their passports, like Hillary, to boast of their having been to many countries. I know many people like that who have and will support narrow and excluding right wing policies.
Just my 2 cents.