Opinion

Who is Wright?

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

By Joseph Schloss

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and a member of Sen. Barack Obama’s spiritual advisory committee, resigned from Obama’s campaign last week, and not a moment too soon.

Although it is not certain whether he resigned voluntarily or was asked by the campaign to leave, it was certainly amid fierce debate in the media and on political blogs over videotapes of sermons that have been perceived by many as racist, hate-filled, anti-Semitic and anti-American. Rev. Wright also recently retired as Pastor of his church but he held sway in that church for 30 years.

According to Ronald Kessler of the Wall Street Journal, Reverend Wright blames America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs and creating a racist society. In a sermon delivered on January 15, 2006, Rev. Wright stated, “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” He continued: “We bombed Cambodia, Iraq, and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Qaddafi …

We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority ... more than we believe in God.” Wright concluded, “We started the AIDS virus … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.”

ABC News reports that it purchased and reviewed dozens of sermons, which were given by Rev. Wright. These are a few excerpts: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no, God damn America. That’s in the bible for killing innocent people.” Then, “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Kessler claims that Rev. Wright teaches hatred against the United States, blaming 9/11 on the citizens of our nation and that he promotes racism by continually referring to our nation as the “United States of White America.” He also says that Wright has decried Zionism and Israel while calling Judaism a “gutter religion.”

As CEO of Trumpeter Magazine, Rev. Wright awarded Louis Farrakhan the Trumpeter Award, which stated that he “truly epitomizes greatness.” Farrakhan, a good friend of Wright’s, is known for his own vitriolic rhetoric, of a similar nature to Rev. Wright’s. In 1984, both Wright and Farrakhan traveled to Tripoli to visit with another friend, Libyan leader Muammar al Qaddafi, back when Libya was considered a state sponsor of terrorism. Libyan terrorists were responsible for blowing up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people under Qaddafi’s regime.

Obama has attended Rev. Wright’s church for almost 20 years. Wright married he and his wife Michelle and baptized their children. Even though Obama has recently condemned these sermons and tried to distance himself from Rev. Wright, is it too little, too late? It should be noted that Obama has also denounced Farrakhan’s racist statements and support. MSNBC reports that Obama said, “I strongly condemn” Wright’s statements, but “I would not repudiate the man.” 

It is believed that Obama has heard Rev. Wright’s hatemongering sermons for years. In fact, Ronald Kessler of the Wall Street Journal claims that Obama has stated that Rev. Wright is his spiritual advisor while Alex Johnson of MSNBC says that Obama claims to use Rev. Wright as a sounding board. Why would Obama affiliate with such a questionable person?
PERMALINK:
Who is Wright? | Planet JH News Article: Right Wing Local

Reader Comments

Same reason some listen to Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell or the mental midgets in CO Springs. Does one person really have the power to speak for all of their followers. No, they speak for themselves. As Jesse said, religion is just a crutch for weak minded people.
Jesse

Let's see now: "Charlie Wilson's War" showed how covert US meddling in foreign affairs led to the blowback of our former secret asset, Osama bin Laden. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, et al scholarly works, depicted how the military gave Native Americans pox-infected blankets during the Trail of Tears; only to be outdone in duplicity, perhaps, by one branch of the military, during the Tuskegee experiments, using black airmen as syphilis-riddled guinea pigs (http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/). Hm? What else? Oh, yeah? The Kerry Commission, Ollie North's notebooks and a memo from the desk of former AG William French-Smith to Bill Casey, over at The Company, outlines how rogue elements of the shadow gov't were given legal cover to turn a blind eye to international coke smuggling into the ghettos and other US destinations so as to divert some proceeds to fund the illegal Contra wars under Reagan and V.P. Bush. Okay, Joe, so you're a real man of the world and a "straight shooter" first (Republican operative second), right? Please explain what's your beef with this meddlesome reverend and ex-Marine? Is it that he too often speaks uncomfortable truths too loudly, forcing Obama to renounce them to get elected in a demonstrably and for too long institutionally racist society? Or that his ecstatic fire-and-brimstone ramblings too often fails to recognize its own overt and reverse racism as it works to empower its largely black congregation? And while you're answering that, have you ever bothered to analyze the bizarre rites of Skull & Bones or that weird Owl burning effigy thing mumbo jumbo at the Bohemian Club gatherings celebrated by leading global elites every summer in north Calif.? At least Obama and his controversial reverend aren't hiding out at their Yale bunker or in the woods with young boys when they're getting their perverted rocks off.
Orwel rolls in his Grave

Balls, get back to your corner.
obamashouldvwalked

Hey, Joe Blow. Didn’t Faux News teach you anything about fair & balanced demagoguery? While you’re busy flexing your desperate hard-on and lamely trying to discredit Obama with your “blacks only” double-standard of implicating him in the racist/anti-American comments of his clergyman, you’ve conspicuously omitted the gems of good old boy Rev. Billy Graham, “America's pastor” and “White House chaplain” to six sitting presidents, Richard M. Nixon included. Might that be because you secretly approve of Graham agreeing with Nixon’s grand conspiracy of Jews controlling the media? HEY! Anyone listening over at clueless Planet HQs? As reported by the Chicago Tribune and AP, here’s a fine example of Rev. Graham ministering to the soul of a sitting president and his Nazi doppelganger, H.R. Haldeman, over a taxpayer-sponsored breakfast at the ultimate good old boy’s "White House". “The lengthy chat opens with Graham praising Nixon's prayer breakfast remarks. ‘There were a lot of people in tears when you finished this morning and it's very moving.’ After offering Nixon tips on preparing himself for big speeches and strategy for his re-election campaign, Graham notes that he has been invited to lunch with editors of Time magazine. ‘I was quite amazed since this is the first time I've heard from Time since (Time founder) Henry Luce died.’ ‘You meet with all their editors, you better take your Jewish beanie,’ Haldeman says. Graham laughs. ‘Is that right? I don't know any of them now.’ Nixon then broaches a subject about which ‘we can't talk about it publicly,’ namely Jewish influence in Hollywood and the media. He cites Paul Keyes, a political conservative who is executive producer of the NBC hit, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, as telling him that ‘11 of the 12 writers are Jewish.’ ‘That right?’ Graham says, prompting Nixon to claim that Life magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others are ‘totally dominated by the Jews.’ He calls network TV anchors, Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite ‘front men who may not be of that persuasion,’ but said their writers are ‘95 percent Jewish.’ He demurs that this does not mean ‘that all the Jews are bad’ but that most are left-wing radicals who want ‘peace at any price except where support for Israel is concerned. The best Jews are actually the Israeli Jews.’ ‘That's right,’ Graham agrees, and later concurs with a Nixon assertion that a ‘powerful bloc’ of Jews confronts Nixon in the media. ‘And they're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff,’ Graham adds. Nixon contends that ‘every Democratic candidate will owe his election to Jewish people,’ but he won't. Haldeman turns the subject to the White House press corps and the Gridiron Club, a bastion of the media establishment, both of which they say were mostly WASP once, but no more. ‘It was the Merriman Smiths, the Dick Wilsons, the Kilpatricks, all that kind of people. But you look at what covers the president today and it's really kind of scary,’ Haldeman says. Haldeman and Nixon cite by name reporters from the Los Angeles Times (David Kraslow), New York Times (Max Frankel), Washington Post (Stanley Karnow) and NBC (Herb Kaplow) but stumble on getting to CBS. ‘From CBS, Rather, Dan Rather, is Rather? . . . ,’ Haldeman says. A deletion then follows with the next voice heard being that of Graham, who alludes to A.M. Rosenthal, managing editor of the New York Times. ‘But I have to lean a little bit, you know. I go and see friend of Mr. Rosenthal at the New York Times, and people of that sort. And all, I don't mean all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me. Because they know I am friendly to Israel and so forth. They don't know how I really feel about what they're doing to this country. And I have no power and no way to handle them.’ Nixon says, ‘You must not let them know’.” Real bigoted of you Joe. How proud you and your fellow white supremacists who follow your lead must be: real stand up guys who would hold the first, viable bi-racial presidential candidate to a standard you still have never, ever thought of applying to a white Republican president or his cynical chuckle-nuts Praesis. -- Information from the Chicago Tribune and Associated Press was used in this report. "You believe that?" Nixon says. "Yes, sir," Graham says. "Oh, boy," Nixon replies. "So do I. I can't ever say that but I believe it." "No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something," Graham replies. and his racist blandishments and crazy conspiracy theories either. forget,either, that the grand old Rev. Billy Graham is on White House tapes saying some rather distasteful and racist things about blacks.
Obama is UR Daddy, Joe!

Yo, Joe! I think the rather long-winded liberal whackjob above is trying to tell you that what Nixon, Rev. Graham and Hadelman conspired about Jews controlling Hollyweird and the media is the same as Obama's America-hating preacher. They also called you and your ditto heads white supremacists. My advice, F-ck'em!
Proud Republican

Why do you guys aid and abet this guy on these blogs! Every time someone responds to him we have to listen (read) his long-winded conspiracy crap. He obviously has time to sit here type out 10,000 word tirades, fortunately, the rest of us don't have the time to read it. He logs in as different screen names so please stop giving this guy the opportunity to bore us all and hijack the comments!
stopthemadness

He just cuts and pastes his tirades in from other sources.
Joe again

Stay insulated in your cocoons as consumers of official disinformation and distraction. Suspend your critical-thinking skills and sip the sweet, simple, children's story version of the truth as the mass media spoon-feeds nonsense to you. Remain benighted and embroiled in the superficial, manufactured controversies about race; about whose claims to historical injustice are unworthy of inclusion in the national agenda as the citizenry becomes more divided, increasingly marginalized and less powerful. Stay enslaved to the status quo that aims only to market artificial wants and commoditize your true needs. In the end, your ignorance will not save you and bliss will come cheap, if at all. Ultimately, you will have lived the unexamined life in mindless celebration of the hobgoblins deceiving you with mere shadows, flickering upon the walls of your caves, while robbing your freedom quicker than the paper in your wallets becomes worthless. All these are provably true. But even the truth cannot set you free if it is denied: 1)The CIA facilitated cocaine to be smuggled into the U.S. and south central Los Angeles in the 1980s so as to fund President Reagan and Vice-President Bush’s illegal wars in central America. (sources: The Kerry Commission; 60 Minutes; Oliver North’s notebooks, memo from William French-Smith to Bill Casey). 2) In the last 2 presidential elections, over 6 million votes went uncounted. Electronic voting is vulnerable to hacking and a proven fraud. (sources: Hacking Democracy, federal lawsuits filed in Ohio, BBC journalist Greg Palast). 3) For strictly political reasons, an FBI investigation into the bin Ladens of Virginia before and after 9/11 was spiked. (The FBI, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4293682,00.html) 4)President Nixon and Rev. Billy Graham discussed Jews controlling the media and hatched plans to control what in their view was the Jewish-controlled press corps. (The Nixon White House tapes, the Associated Press) This is only the tip of the iceberg. Where it goes is up to us.
Orwell rolls in his Grave

Joe Ditto Head, while you're busy regurgitating race-baiting Fixed News/GOP talking points and drooling over Elliot Spitzer getting caught with his pants down, your knuckle headed Commander-in-Chief, his Sec. of State, Kind-a-lies-a-lot, and Deputy National Security-Adviser have been busted arming Fatah-strongman Muhammad Dahlan and starting a covert civil war in Gaza against the democratically-elected government of Hamas. (www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804) Now Joe, I know this is probably more than your partisan pea brain can handle, but if Congress didn't authorize arming an internationally recognized terrorist group: wouldn't that be illegal, according to what's left of the Constitution? Oh, yeah. I forgot. The Constitution only applies to those blood-lusting lowlifes who aren't gangsters inside the criminally insane Bush White House. Forgive me.
Republicans for Psychotherapy

blah blah, why are your left wing talking points more valid than joe's so-called right wing talking points? gaza needs a big enema as far as i'm concerned and maybe a covert war is just the man for the job. both fatah and hamas are nothing but a bunch of thugs, but fatah realizes the first one to a peaceful 2-state solution is the winner.
muhammad

Ah? Someone who's unafraid of engaging on the issues. Sounds like your justifying a covert and possibly illegal war without regard to the relevance or integrity of preserving the Constitution. Is that your position, Muhammad? And if it is, why bother at any pretense to being a Muslim-American?
Orwell rolls in his Grave



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