Letters to the Editor
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@adelito
I meant it sincerely although not particularly personally.
Don't worry though, I've increasingly come to see both parties as Allen Ginsburg's "Molech" incarnate- Given the state of things, I think it would have been nearly as pejorative to call someone a Democrat.
Without more than two choices we are all forced to wedge ourselves into unsavory categories and to become caricatures of human beings in the process.
Note though that it was a prominent Hillary supporter who got Wright his gig at the National Press Club- interesting, no?
More importantly, what do you think it says about a country when someone like Wright can be deployed to "scare Americans" even after the candidate has made it clear that he does not agree with him and his actions demonstrate just that?
What does he have to do the next time Wright speaks? And the next? The next?
If Clinton supporters can argue that Hillary is not accountable for Bill, surely Obama can argue that he is not accountable Wright.
Wrong- not in this political climate.
It's not enough to mock this stuff on the Daily Show and Colbert Report. American politics has been overtaken by a cancerof shallow stupidity. I strongly suspect that until we have more than a single binary choice, we a doomed to decline. It's an engineering problem, really.
If nothing else, this campaign has illustrated the point with incandescent clarity.
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@adelito
Obama supporters think Joan is using Wright as a pretext. Wright's views, whether you disagree with all, most, some, or none of them, are immaterial unless you believe Obama shares them. Obama has said, consistently and believably, that he does not endorse Wright's political views.
Do you think he does?
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Obama is not the biggest loser
Several have mentioned how Glenn Greenwald mocked or otherwise had some sarcastic fun at the expense of Joan Walsh. As most of the longtime readers of Glenn know, that is not the way he rolls. He was mocking everyone one of us who have contributed to validating and catapulting this tripe whose only relevance is as a gimmick to inflict political damage on one of the candidates while distracting us from the multitude of truly relevant issues affecting us. That includes the establishment media, the right-wing smear machine, bloggers such as Joan who we thought would know better, and even those of us who have commented positively or negatively.
While we all have our hand in it, the establishment media should be given special merit (to steal some of Greenwald’s sarcasm) for making sure this issue gets blown exponentially out of proportion. To get some sense of what has transpired since Reverend Wright appeared on Bill Moyer’s program Friday, I took a stroll through the headlines of Think Progress for the period:
- Joint Chiefs concerned over Iran’s influence in Iraq
- Pentagon suspends media propaganda campaign
- Baghdad embassy lacks secure housing, may be delayed again
- Blackwater accused of shredding documents
- Iranian elections make Ahmadinejad ‘increasingly vulnerable’
- DOJ giving interrogators room to breach international law
- Green Zone bombarded with heavy rocket fire
- 855 Iraq contracts found to be terminated prior to their completion
- Baghdad security forces targeted by nearly double normal number of IED’s
- Lawyers representing suspects in terrorism-related investigations believe government is listening in
- Financial institutions have sharply raised rates for credit card customers and imposed higher fees
- House Judiciary to investigate Rove’s alleged effort to get Fitzgerald fired
- Supreme Court upholds Indiana voter identification laws
- Supreme Court Justice Scalia claims torture not used as punishment is legal
- Baghdad bracing for summer electricity crisis
- April deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since September
- Afghanistan insurgency may be spreading north
- John Conyers threatens to subpoena David Addington and John Yoo on interrogation policies; Cheney lawyer claims Congress lacks constitutional power to compel this
- Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan find greatly diminished benefits versus returnees in previous wars
- Former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay testifies he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along for political purposes
- Subcontractor quits doing business with Blackwater due to being associated with Blackwater’s questionable business practices
- Former KBR employees say workers stole from Iraq, ‘melted down gold to make spurs’
Can anyone argue that any single one of these issues is not ultimately more important to the welfare of our nation and its citizens than what Barack Obama’s pastor said?
When one logs in to Salon, it is naïve to expect such an issue to be ignored given the 24/7 establishment media coverage, but is it too much to ask that a little perspective be afforded by Salon’s columnists when discussing these things, rather than buying completely into the media’s distorted obsession?
Joan Walsh has jumped in head first with the establishment media narrative with all of her postings save one on this issue since Friday. She made it clear she has studied Wright’s musings at great length, has passed final judgment on Wright’s personality and motivations, and has even offered a scenario courtesy of her imagination of how Obama came to join such a church. If supposed “lefty” bloggers are unable to battle these tired media narratives any better than this, then what chance do we have of have of ever stopping this perverted cycle from repeating itself endlessly to our detriment?
No, the biggest loser was not Barack Obama; it was, as always, an adequately-informed citizenry.
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I have returned!! I got so many emails from folks who read this site ..Thank YOU ALL!!!!!
It was painful yesterday observing the public geneflection of Obama to the myopic views of white liberals , black apologists and the predictible right wing suspects..
Obama's capitulation to the pc lords twisted interpetation of Rev.Wright's view of our country's flawed social, political landscape was truly painful.
Obama's willingness to allow others to define and force him to bend over reveals the side of being bi-racial the pc lords lke to avoid.
Obama's self inflicted agenda to castrate his Black personhood as a ploy to disarm the white voter brings with it certain liabilities. Obama's public back hand to Rev.Wright was more than a Sista Soulja moment it was a psa( public service announcement) that those negroes and coloreds have been put in thier place and from this point forward the agenda of people of color( Black Folks) is now invisible and not worthy of any attention.
The DEMS have played this script for decades they own Black voters..The DEMS play the card that we are not as lethal as the GOP therefore Black folks owe us and there is nothing they can do about it..impotent negroes and coloreds are the core bloc of the DEMS
Obama's public lynching of Rev.Wright sealed the deal..