The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, shown here in happier times with Barack Obama, has been used as a target to attack the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama by the mainstream media. And I read today on AOL that Barack Obama is further distancing himself from the good reverend to try to win votes.
I understand that Reverend Wright made an appearance on PBS Bill Moyers to defend himself and show people that he his neither a fanatic or an America hater. In an article on Smirking Chimp.com. by Mike Whitney, he is described as "just an extremely well-read and principled man with an unshakable commitment to justice. Wright has also paid his dues; he's an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam when most of his critics were either hiding behind their student deferments or languishing in the "Champagne Unit" of the Texas National Guard. He's earned the right to say whatever he chooses"
So what has he said that is so fanatical? Here some excerpts of his sermons taken from the afore mentioned article by Mike Whitney. You be the judge.
"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. 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. Not God bless America; God damn America!
"You know, you come into the average church on a Sunday morning and you think you've stepped from the real world into a fantasy world. And what do I mean by that" He said? Pick up the church bulletin. You leave a world, Vietnam, or today you leave a world, Iraq, over 4,000 dead, American boys and girls, 100,000 or 200,000 depending on which count, Iraqi dead. Afghanistan, Darfur, rapes in the Congo, Katrina, Lower Ninth Ward, that's the world you leave. And you come in; you pick up your church bulletin. It says, there is a ladies tea on second Sunday. He said, "How come the faith preached in our churches does not relate to the world in which our church members leave at the benediction?”
America has blood on its hands. America, as Martin Luther King said, "is the greatest perpetrator of violence in the world today."
So has the good reverend lied or misled the public with his remembering of the history of the U.S.? I think not. Does a lot of what was said not ring true in this country. I think so. The sad part now is that Barack Obama had a chance to stand up for something he apparently once believed in but traded his convictions for votes. That to me is the sad commentary of this whole episode. To criticize the U.S. Government and it's policies does not make one unpatriotic. If it weren't for critics we may be still paying taxes to Great Britain and the constitution would have just been a fleeting thought.
If you care to read the entire article by Mike Whitney go to smirkingchimp.com
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