Letters to the Editor
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Watch the whole sermon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ
Controversial? Sure.
A racist, anti-American hater? Not so much.
Mohammed's not the only one getting caricatured these days.
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@ DoloresFlower: No, We Didn't!
Also, about religion: Falwell said almost the same thing about 9-11 and white people put up with him. McCain actively sought out the support of Hagee....No one has a perfect religion. At least they know Obama's a radical Christian now, right?
I appreciate that you are very idealistic and that you support Barack Obama. Actually, you are one of the few Salon posters that almost always seems reasonable in your comments and questions. However, I'd like to "weigh in" on your comment (above):
For me, personally, being a "liberal" means always standing up for liberal values and beliefs. This includes speaking up and standing up to "hate speech", whether it is delivered by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jeremiah Wright, or Louis Farrakhan.
No good comes from such speech, ever. A person may have the best intentions, but if they direct verbal hatred at other people -- whether Black, white, Asian, Latino, GLBT, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, ... -- we must challenge them on it. It is a double standard of the worst kind to insist that Wright (or any other pastor AND public figure) be given slack for what they say publicly about others, individually or collectively.
People like Adolf Hitler should be a prime example to us of what hate speech can do and does to people if it goes unchallenged and is not stopped in its tracks. What resulted from Adolf Hitler's hate speech about Jews resulted in the worst mass murder of people in the world to date.
I do not support candidates who let "hate speech" from their spiritual advisors and religious counselors slip by, unchallenged.
There are also a couple of important distinctions I think we are missing here when we keep suggesting that Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright be given some slack for their words.
1] Sen. Obama is a public figure, running for the highest and most powerful office in our country -- and in the world. If he was a private citizen, listening to and supporting the comments of Rev. Wright, that would be one thing. He IS NOT a private citizen.
2] I recall, not too long ago that Sen. Clinton challenged Sen. Obama's speeches and words (compared to her "experience"). Sen. Obama's reply was instructional then and, I think, is equally instructional now:
On Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008, in a speech delivered to the Wisconsin Democratic Party Dinner in Milwaukee, Sen. Obama said this:
“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Obama said. “‘I have a dream.’ Just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words? Just speeches?”
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Look hard look clear, but all you embrace is fear.
Some people are just undoubtedly double visioned. Barack Obama. Rev. Wright. Go on. Make the superimposition, what ever helps your prejudices, fears, and superstitions.
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@infantile
What on earth are you talking about? Exactly how does our middle-east policy of supporting one radical islamic regime (Saudi Arabia, which is about as radical of an islamic state as any, and the fact that we are in bed with the Saudis is one of Osama's big beefs with us) over another is in any way shape or form equivalent to our involvement with WWII? Granted, much if not most of the reason the middle-east is a cesspool is because of colonialism and the fact that they were used as chess pieces in the cold war. If you voted for Reagan in 1980, you helped cause much of the current mess. Carter tried to get us to wean ourselves from mideast oil and then had to deal with the hostage crisis, which he did so successfully by freezing their assets, bringing all the hostages home safely. Contrast that with Reagan buying off Iran with weapons to free some hostages in Lebanon (while others died) and funneling the money to support terrorists in central America. This is what I call short sighted. For some reason, I think that if Carter had remained in office, we wouldn't be having many of the problems we are facing now.
I am a liberal== I am American. We are a Liberal country, based on liberal principles. And I assume you aren't from New Hampshire, since you obviously don't believe in the motto "Live Free or Die". Why do you hate America so much that you make fun of liberals?
And, by the way, if our country ever felt as publicly sorry for what we did to the Blacks and the Native Americans as the Germans, as a nation, do for what happened during WWII, it would help a lot towards healing the racial divide. On the other hand, there aren't really that many non-Germans of any type left in Germany, so maybe it is easier for them.
And no, I didn't cheer on Sept. 11. I just get very angry at ass-holes who use that as an excuse for wholesale slaughter rather than for asking ourselves what the hell has gone so wrong with our middle-east policy that there are dozens of lunatics running suicide missions against our people.
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Wright Was Right And So Was Obama For Not Disowning His Pastor
He and his overtheatrical lapses may for some move them to vote for Hillary or McCain....or at least scare them away from Barack. But my guess and hope is that the US electorate, after the eight years of hear no evil, see no evil, and tell no truth tactics of Bush and Cheney, has had enough of these false maneuvers by the press and goofy conservative pundits who want to attribute Wright's ramblings as Barack's beliefs.
Barack Obama's Tuesday speech on race,religion,and politics.....a speech necessitated by Hillary's and Geraldine Ferraro's claim that he would be nowhere in politics were he not black...[possibly partly true but a foolish assertion nonetheless], set the stage for what they hoped would be a defense or disposal of Rev. Wright by a candidate that they can't figure out how to beat.
Giving him the occasion that they offered him, he rose to the occasion with such a thoughtful and brilliantly delivered speech, that the only loosers after the dust had settled were Hillary, Geraldine, and the McCain campaign.
They may try again to make race a major issue in this campaign, certainly uninformed voters will be encouraged to do so. But for the rest of us, and we will be the majority, we are tired of the issue of race being the stalemate that keeps our country locked in unspoken conflict.
Mr. Obama was correct in everything he said and it's about time we heard a politician speak truth to the power of the people on all sides of the race issue.
From my white Chicago suburban position, where I grew up seeing poor middle aged black women get off the bus and trundle up our sidewalks every morning, shopping bag in hand; coming to clean our bathrooms, make our beds, wash and iron our clothes, care for and help raise us when our mothers were all too often unavailable. I wondered, where do these people live? Was it in those dangerous desintegrating all black neighborhoods where no white person would go without being freightened beyond belief or never come out alive? Certainly Willie Maude Bond, our maid,friend,and protector couldn't live in a neighborhood like that. But where did she live and why weren't we ever allowed to visit her in her home or go to her church? These were thoughtless prohibitions that should never have been allowed and only added to the white fright and flight mentality of the last century.
As Mr. Obama said, we are a United Nation, a people united to strive for the best for all of us. Those that we ignore and dismiss by not going to their neighborhoods and their churches and inviting them to ours, diminishes the standing of all races. Theirs as well as ours. Those that we fail to understand and fear, have the same right to misunderstand and fear us.
It's no wonder that of all nations, we're the nation most apt to go to war against our enemies, now premptively, given the fact that our own civil war and the reason for it, has never been properly discussed, understood, or put to rest. An Obama presidency will finally and forever correct this severe deficiency.
John H. Higgins cazador@nnex.net