Read other letters about this article

• Sunday, April 27, 2008 12:43 PM

  what is wrong with these posters?

  I have been reading Joan Walsh for months now, along with the comments, and the viciousness towards her from some of these posters is shocking.

  it seems to me that Walsh may lean very slightly towards Clinton, but only in the same way that most media commentators lean all the way down and touch their toes for Obama. It doesn't detract from her clear desire to be balanced and to see things in this race as they are.

  I had exactly the same take watching Wright's talk with Moyers. I suppose if you really thought that Wright was some kind of psycho, the interview and the longer clips would have disabused you of that notion. He's not. His style of oratory, though not necessarily what he says, is not unusual in the african-american church.

  But what it did was illustrate that he is clearly an intelligent and thoughtful man of great gifts who is peddling a completely dumb and outmoded far left-wing idealogy of victimization and conspiracy theory. This ideology is not purely spiritual in nature but is inextricably bound up with very bad politics. That he appears to sincerely believe his flock is in need of framing God as that of the oppressed and not of the oppressors (and that we as a country apparently need two gods) doesn't detract from the fact that it strikes many Americans as distasteful and self-serving, AND, not coincidently, completely counter to what Senator Obama says he stands for as a candidate. The longer clips, rather than indicating that the "soundbites" were taken "out of context," actually confirmed that the longer sermons were reinforcements of the sense of them!

  according to wright, what is wrong with this country is that we don't learn in school about the trail of tears, we only learn about 1776. I don't know what schools he's been visiting, but I learned about the trail of tears AND 1776. I learned about the slave trade, the writing of the Constitution, the Civil War, Jim Crow AND the Civil Rights movement. The Holocaust (the one Farrakahn says didn't happen) AND the firebombing of Dresden AND the Marshall Plan. If someone has a simplistic view of America, it seems to be Wright himself.

  I also agree that Wright came across as so eager to clear his image that he didn't really care what it did to the candidate he has been supporting so fiercely from the pulpit.

  It's not, rev. wright, that we are not sophisticated enough to understand you. it is that we are.

  —phillycat Read phillycat's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel