COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Is Obama's Black Church that Black?


White liberal praying it ain't so.

There are a lot of blacks including Oprah Winfrey that were part of Reverend Wright's church. Just a couple of weeks ago we heard that it was the church to go to in Chicago if you wanted credibility in the black community. Me thinks that Reving'em up Wright, is probably more main street in that community than many liberals would like to believe.

Wright is telling it like it is, but picked an inconvenient time to do it. He has torn back the curtain and a lot of people are pretending shock. Wright said "blacks are different" and that unspeakable is anathema to multi-culturalism. That is not the Obama message but is also much closer to the truth.

Recall the reaction in white America when OJ Simpson was found not guilty. Whites were shocked and blacks went into a delerium of ecstasy.

Those same type of pictures are on every clip of the Rev on every youtube clip. The parishoners who were present at the Press Club yesterday are the same folks who were in Church with Barack Obama.

Obama sat and absorbed that for twenty years. Barack Obama was mesmerized by this very bright and very seductive man. What does that tell you about a President Obama?

_________________________

Wright Says Criticism Is Attack on Black Church

Attacks on him are really attacks on the black church, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. said in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington on Monday, in which he mounted a spirited defense of views and sermons that have become an issue in the presidential campaign because Senator Barack Obama attended his church for many years.

Mr. Wright told the press club audience that the black church in America grew out of the oppression of black people, and that his sermons reflected that struggle.

Snippets from his sermons have been used in Republican commercials seeking to depict Senator Obama as unpatriotic, and the Democratic presidential candidate has given a carefully calibrated speech seeking to distance himself from Mr. Wright’s more inflammatory statements.

Speaking Monday, Mr. Wright said that political opponents of Senator Obama were exploiting the fact that the style of prayer and preaching in black churches was different from European church traditions — “Different, but not deficient,” he said.

(more)

49 comments:

  1. "Recall the reaction in white America when OJ Simpson was found guilty. Whites were shocked and blacks went into a delerium of ecstasy."


    Shouldn't that read NOT guilty?

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  2. oops ......thanks Mat....I guess that gives away my real belief!

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  3. Will the Rev. Wright fixation be enough to cover the yawning gap in enthusiasm for McCain?

    I have tried my hand at boosterism without success and am left merely with the cheering thought that this eight years is coming to an end, that Tom and Daisy are on their way out. ("They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.").

    Perhaps that's why it's hard to get very worked up by the good Reverend, well received at the National Press Club. And by my own mother.

    Yes, my own mother.

    It really is, you see, all about Bush.

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  4. Too bad for the Dems that they don't have the attack machine working too well. A natural counter, and McCain seems to know it, would be to pair McCain with all his shady and odious companions - wives, business folk, and his Pastor Hagee, would make for some tawdry slime to be thrown about.

    Trish, in case you have moved on from the last thread I got a question for your supper: "Would he resign if Bush gave the order to bomb Iran? At what point should one refuse to follow orders?"

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  5. 2164th: Obama sat and absorbed that for twenty years. Barack Obama was mesmerized by this very bright and very seductive man. What does that tell you about a President Obama?

    It tells me more about you than Obama. My current priest is an alcoholic, when he prepares the sacramental wine during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, he himself is required to consecrate a small amount of non-alcoholic grape juice as well to drink when he performs the rite. The priest at the Church I attended before this one is a flaming homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that). Catholics don't go to Church to absorb the vibes coming from whatever personality is presiding over the Mass. I can see Obama going to this church to get "street cred" or to rub elbows with the movers and shakers in the black community, but righties are fixated on what Rev. Wright said about this and that, and they insist that these values and beliefs somehow filtered into Obama's subconscious by osmosis. In doing so, they reduce human beings to automatons with no judgment or free will. We all become helpless products of the ideas of our associates, just like the little kids in the polygamy ranch in Texas.

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  6. Still worried about that, ash? I wouldn't be.

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  7. I've taken solace in your confidence in Bush's decision making acumen and I, personally, think it would be a horrible mistake (but I thought that about Iraq as well). But given your confidence in the folly of the decision to Bomb Iran and, presumably, also your dinner companions agreement, it makes the question quite pertinent. I mean - given the folly of such a move the administration still persists in its Saber rattling,so, what if we are wrong (it has been known to happen) and the administration sees fit to do the deed: will you, and the good general, continue to perform your function in that machine?

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  8. the so called "reverend" wright makes points most white people have not picked up on...

    that the "hebrews" are black, as is jesus

    that the modern day jew is not a real one, but a fake carpet bagging euro trash khazar wannabe...

    that the black person cannot learn like a white person

    wrap your mind around those gems of love...

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  9. .."It tells me more about you than Obama. My current priest is an alcoholic, when he prepares the sacramental wine during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, he himself is required to consecrate a small amount of non-alcoholic grape juice as well to drink when he performs the rite.."

    that is about you, not about me.

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  10. I wouldn't presume to speak for Casey, and the question is obviously far too impertinent. I don't even deal in impertinence without the "far too."

    As for me, ash, my function is purely decorative.

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  11. Trish,

    You are dead on. There is no obvious way that the Republicans can win unless the Democrats really blow up. In that case never underestimate the ability of McCain to one up them.

    I too found the Reverend's talk very entertaining. He is a powerful speaker who does not back down from his beliefs. he is fast, knowledgeable and loyal to his cause. He is mesmerizing in his delivery and passion. I want a President who is immune to all of the Reverend's skills and craft.

    George Bush was also mesmerized by Fox, Cheney, Putin and Blair. That was one of his several weaknesses. Obama seems to share that one in particular. Hillary is not mesmerized by anyone. that is a strength we need in a President. McCain seems to be his own man, but I too have no enthusiasm for the man.

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  12. See, there's something about Hillary AS A WOMAN that I just can't abide. She's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Always has been. As with some people here and McCain, it really is (or can be) a very subjective matter.

    The cult of personality surrounding Bush - and his predecessor - is something I have found terribly off-putting. Hillary, too, has that. As does Obama. McCain? Mmmmmmnotsomuch. Perhaps it is simply a requirement of the modern imperial presidency. Eeeeeeyuck.

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  13. "The cult of personality.."

    The problems with McCain have little to do with personality. The problems with McCain are those of substantive policy.

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  14. ah but the casual chit chat with the after dinner drinks is a prime place to sneak in some impertinent questions- where good foolosphy resides. Yes one can destroy the career of ones spouse through impertinence but if is just the four of you the risk is low unless you question the veracity of the answer. A whole bunch of folk present, well, at work y'all are and one must toe the line and fer always spout "yes sir!".

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  15. Those drinks are before dinner, ash, and ain't nobody likkering up, though the thought may occur.

    Just the four of us? Oh, heavens no.

    It's not about anyone's career, ash, just common decency. Honest.

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  16. Is it indecent for the top brass to wax philosophical with each other on when they should retire rather then perpetuate something they disagree with strongly? I hope not.

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  17. ...that is about you, not about me...

    Okay my digression obscured my point, which was...people who suggest that Obama was brainwashed after 20 years of attending a church are really saying that they believe it is possible to be brainwashed by attending a church for 20 years. So it's like the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" I don't accept the premise.

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  18. Again, ash, I really believe it's a non-factor - difficult-to-impossible though it frequently is to persuade others of this.

    In re saber rattling: Didn't your mother ever say, "Don't MAKE me come over there." All the while other efforts, countermeasures, go undisclosed and unremarked, because they must. That they must is in one respect at least unfortunate and we would I think be more able judges were it otherwise. But it is not.

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  19. Ash:
    Why don't you share some of that Pastor Hagee "slime" with us?

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  20. Trish:
    Think of me when you ask these two burning questions of the General.
    1. How's the Missus?
    2. Are you enjoying Bogota? :)

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  21. Man that Wright/Obama relationship is something else. The beating heart of Christ doesn't reside there. With a pastor like that, a man would have been better off to be a shaman, meditate in an igloo. Go on a vision quest as of old. 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there political calculation begins.'

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  22. Ask him farmer bob wants to know who gets the fuel when rationing begins.

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  23. After D.C. vanishes, and martial law begins. Throw in whether or not retaliatory orders are in place, lacking a commander in chief.

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  24. I wish someone would ask Reverend Wright a few questions such as:

    1. If you believe that US education discriminates against left-brain subject oriented black youth, why do you say nothing about the liberal dominated Teaching establishment?

    2. Does White America hate African rhythm and meter?

    3. Do native American's share in culpability? Did they practice genocide?

    4. Who captured and sold Africans into slavery?

    5. Why do you think slaves were counted as 3/5's of a free person?

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  25. SHARPTON RAPS OBAMA
    By CHUCK BENNETT and KAVITA MOKHA
    AL BE DARNED: Al Sharpton, with Nicole Paultre-Bell yesterday, was furious over Barack Obama's reaction to the Sean Bell verdict, sources said.
    April 29, 2008 --

    Barack Obama made a call for nonviolence in the aftermath of the Sean Bell verdict - infuriating the Rev. Al Sharpton, who accused the presidential candidate of trying to "grandstand in front of white people," sources told The Post.

    During what a source described as a "heated" phone call yesterday, Sharpton told Obama he was disappointed with the Illinois senator's words on Friday, when Obama said "resorting to violence to express displeasure" was "completely unacceptable and counterproductive."


    "[Obama] issues this statement and not a single rock had been thrown," said a source. "How does the candidate of change ask people to accept a verdict that is unjust?"

    The source said Sharpton had hoped Obama would "side with the Bell family" and not use it as an "opportunity to grandstand in front of white people."

    An Obama spokesman described the conversation as a chance to "hear [Sharpton's] views and to get his perspective."

    Sharpton ratcheted up the pressure on federal prosecutors yesterday by bringing Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to Kalua, the Queens strip club where the Nov. 25, 2006 shooting took place.

    "We are going to put together a federal strategy on how to deal with the case," Conyers said.

    Also yesterday, Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman, who rendered the not-guilty verdict, refused to comment on his decision.

    "He said what he had to say on the bench," his law clerk said.
    -----

    "takes sides"

    Honest to God, Al, it's a court, with a Judge, who hears evidence, under the rules of evidence, applies the law, then makes the best decision he can, in certain circumstances which are MURKY BEYOND BELIEF, oftentimes.

    I'm almost starting to feel for Obama, a dangerous sign.

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  26. I'd ask Wright if American blacks are better off in America than the average black in Africa.

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  27. A little less provocative, bob, as we try not to approach one another as others approach us. ("What in the hell were you thinking in going to Iraq? Jesus, that's a mess. Why in God's name are you still there?" Oh, yes. The burning questions.)

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  28. J Wright said this, said that, said a whole bunch o stuff.

    He is running for nothing.

    He is not Obama, never will be.

    He is a strawman, not even a proxy.

    Fire away, while the target gets away through the smoke.

    His mama was right, the GOP elite disdain him
    Watch McCain as the pressure mounts and his donations continue to lag. He'll strike out at something or someone, guarentteed

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  29. Whit,

    I'm not really keen on pouring through Pastor Hagee's crap or other evangelical BS. Wiki gives easy synopsis on Hagee's Katrina stuff:

    "Comments on hurricane Katrina

    During the same September 18, 2006, edition of National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Hagee said Hurricane Katrina was an act of God, punishing New Orleans for "a level of sin that was offensive to God." He referred to a "homosexual parade" held on the date the hurricane struck and this was proof "of the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." [30], even though the Southern Decadence parade was scheduled for the following week and the primary gay neighborhoods, the French Quarter and the Marigny, were spared the flooding and destruction. Another reason for God's wrath, Hagee claims, was the Bush administration's pressure on Israel to abandon settlements and the associated land. Therefore, God took American land in a "tit for tat" exchange."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hagee#Comments_on_hurricane_Katrina

    And there is loads of Christian nonsense out there. Maybe the Dems should get an attack machine rolling and get McCain to answer for all of it. Seems Obama is responsible for justifying all the Black Liberation bull why not plaster McCain with the evangelicals. www.godtube.com has some wonderful stuff!

    Here is a nice piece of molecular biology from a babbling Christian for you:

    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/molecular_biology_for_babbling.php

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  30. Just shootin' for the moon Tirsh.

    Try, then, if he has an opinion on the entheo-izng qualities of ayahuasca, widely used by jungle Colombians, as a highway to insight. If you think it might not cast some suspicions on you:)

    That's not military, not even politcal.

    You sound like you're enjoying yourself, Trish. I'm glad, and a little envious, things get a major boring around here sometimes....gotta go.

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  31. The small donations, $1,000 or less, contnue to flow to Obama, in record numbers.
    The internet coming through, for a "new age" Democrat. $30, $40, $50 million USD per month.

    McCain can't come close.
    May have to take the Federal subsidy designed for non-performing politicians, to maintain demoracy's appearances.

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  32. ...that and free rides on wifey poo's jet loads him up with legal entanglements up the wazoo.

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  33. I sympathize with Bob in starting to feel sorry for Obama.

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  34. I doubt the general will have anything to say that we do not already know.

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  35. better get a hanky cause I'm sure there are more Swift boats left to be launched.

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  36. Given that the whole point in his coming down is to have it said to him.

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  37. "It really is, you see, all about Bush."

    For some people.

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  38. For whole shitloads it is, cutler.

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  39. Desert Rat: May have to take the Federal subsidy designed for non-performing politicians, to maintain demoracy's appearances.

    Now watch McCainiac call for both sides to stick to federal funding, in a sudden attack of principle.

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  40. For whole shitloads of people it is about a lot of things.

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  41. "A lot of things" to a lot of people have a common thread, cutler. Disenchantment (or sheer apoplexy) has a common object for millions of Americans who never reached room temperature fondness for the man in the first place. Is this generally unknown? Controversial?

    But the observations are not mutually exclusive.

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  42. Don't worry Ash, feeling sorry and showing mercy are two different things. nothing personal...

    Obama 'outraged' and 'saddened' by Wright
    Sen. Barack Obama said today he was appalled by the latest comments from his former pastor, who asserted that criticism of his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church and the U.S. government was responsible for the creation of the AIDS virus.

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  43. "A lot of things" to a lot of people have a common thread, cutler. Disenchantment (or sheer apoplexy) has a common object for millions of Americans who never reached room temperature fondness for the man in the first place. Is this generally unknown? Controversial?"

    ...

    Moving the goalposts back,

    "It is all about Bush."

    For some people. Plenty of others distinguish between elections and candidates.

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  44. Absolutely, cutler, plenty of others do.

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  45. *hoping there's a lot more of them*

    BTW Trish,

    I've been meaning to ask you if you got my email.

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