Why Are We Debating What America Is Capable Of? (Or, Obfuscation Part Deux)
The controversy surrounding Senator Barack Obama's association with The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is the gift that keeps on giving, for Hillary Clinton, Republicans and the press.
His most recent comments and the Senator's response continue to detract and distract voters from real issues and real discussions regarding the course this nation needs to take, which is a sharp turn to the left, away from eight years of GOP-generated foolishness -- literally -- that have cost millions of jobs, billions of dollars, and a dimmer future for most Americans.
Instead, we debate whether Obama should disown Wright after his comments to a recent NAACP gathering in Detroit. The reverend, unrepentant in his attacks on the past bad deeds of the government of the United States, continued in that same vane, restating his belief that the government created AIDS as a method of committing genocide against African-Americans. As part of his proof, he referenced the hotly-disputed 1996 book "Emerging Viruses: AIDS And Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional?" by Leonard G Horowitz, which contends that AIDS and the Ebola viruses evolved during cancer experiments on monkeys.
Wright also referenced "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" by Harriet Washington, and said based on the Tuskegee experiment -- in which the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a 40-year study on 400 poor black men in Alabama with syphilis whom they did not properly treat -- "I believe our government is capable of anything."
These comments followed Wright's reference to words by former Ambassador Edwin Peck, who right after 9/11,
in an interview with Fox news, said:
Senator Obama is in the no-win position of decrying the comments of the prescient Dr. Wright, while not angering his black constituency, and yet remaining middle-of-the-road enough, maybe even forsaking his own deeply-seated beliefs to satisfy white Americans that he's "their kind of black person." Let's be honest here, if this were Hillary Clinton's pastor making comments such as these -- all the while using credible, if disagreeable sources and facts -- this would be a non-issue.
It is truth -- painful in how extremely well-documented the experiment was -- that the US Government purposefully infected black men with syphilis, for no other reasons than to perform a long-term, UNETHICAL medical trial, that resulted in premature death, and disability, something that would get any doctor or Big Pharma corporate officer years in prison. And oh...uh, Nazis did the same kind of thing to Jews, lest we forget. And we called them war criminals.
And it's conspicuously strange that one the two groups immediately -- and still disproportionately -- affected by AIDS and HIV are African-Americans. While the proof there is less solid, given past history, how could one not infer such a potential tie between government and medical evil-doing?
The problem, though, isn't the veracity of the statements.
The issue is, the latest flap -- will they ever end so we can focus on issues -- puts Obama square in the middle of a race conundrum: accept his blackness while agreeing with the pastor, and shore up that constituency, or deny Wright, and his statements while going pro-America from here on out, to attract and keep non-black voters for whom history is nothing but an interesting, if fully-unexplored, footnote.
This is the place where we've come: where revisionist, history, media spinners, and a "post-racial" America converge. A place where a man of African extraction can be president, if only his rabble-rousing-remind-America-of-it-shady-past-and-even-shadier-future pastor can keep from inflaming the ridiculously fragile sensitivities of people who'd rather know what car Brittney Spears has recently crashed or how sweet, innocent Millie Cyrus could possibly take naked pictures.
It's a shame.
His most recent comments and the Senator's response continue to detract and distract voters from real issues and real discussions regarding the course this nation needs to take, which is a sharp turn to the left, away from eight years of GOP-generated foolishness -- literally -- that have cost millions of jobs, billions of dollars, and a dimmer future for most Americans.
Instead, we debate whether Obama should disown Wright after his comments to a recent NAACP gathering in Detroit. The reverend, unrepentant in his attacks on the past bad deeds of the government of the United States, continued in that same vane, restating his belief that the government created AIDS as a method of committing genocide against African-Americans. As part of his proof, he referenced the hotly-disputed 1996 book "Emerging Viruses: AIDS And Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional?" by Leonard G Horowitz, which contends that AIDS and the Ebola viruses evolved during cancer experiments on monkeys.
Wright also referenced "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" by Harriet Washington, and said based on the Tuskegee experiment -- in which the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a 40-year study on 400 poor black men in Alabama with syphilis whom they did not properly treat -- "I believe our government is capable of anything."
These comments followed Wright's reference to words by former Ambassador Edwin Peck, who right after 9/11,
in an interview with Fox news, said:
Back to Dr. Wrights current comments, which to my ears ring at least somewhat true, and the effect on the Obama campaign."We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Senator Obama is in the no-win position of decrying the comments of the prescient Dr. Wright, while not angering his black constituency, and yet remaining middle-of-the-road enough, maybe even forsaking his own deeply-seated beliefs to satisfy white Americans that he's "their kind of black person." Let's be honest here, if this were Hillary Clinton's pastor making comments such as these -- all the while using credible, if disagreeable sources and facts -- this would be a non-issue.
It is truth -- painful in how extremely well-documented the experiment was -- that the US Government purposefully infected black men with syphilis, for no other reasons than to perform a long-term, UNETHICAL medical trial, that resulted in premature death, and disability, something that would get any doctor or Big Pharma corporate officer years in prison. And oh...uh, Nazis did the same kind of thing to Jews, lest we forget. And we called them war criminals.
And it's conspicuously strange that one the two groups immediately -- and still disproportionately -- affected by AIDS and HIV are African-Americans. While the proof there is less solid, given past history, how could one not infer such a potential tie between government and medical evil-doing?
The problem, though, isn't the veracity of the statements.
The issue is, the latest flap -- will they ever end so we can focus on issues -- puts Obama square in the middle of a race conundrum: accept his blackness while agreeing with the pastor, and shore up that constituency, or deny Wright, and his statements while going pro-America from here on out, to attract and keep non-black voters for whom history is nothing but an interesting, if fully-unexplored, footnote.
This is the place where we've come: where revisionist, history, media spinners, and a "post-racial" America converge. A place where a man of African extraction can be president, if only his rabble-rousing-remind-America-of-it-shady-past-and-even-shadier-future pastor can keep from inflaming the ridiculously fragile sensitivities of people who'd rather know what car Brittney Spears has recently crashed or how sweet, innocent Millie Cyrus could possibly take naked pictures.
It's a shame.
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i personally have been tired of hearing about this wright thing for a long time. it's such a distraction and as usual in this election, the issues have been overlooked and personalities and other junk have gotten in the way.
what's so funny to me is how all of this has played out and the confusion of it all. on a radio station here yesterday the DJ couldn't get ENOUGH of praising everything wright said during his media tirade the other day and oh he's so smooth and intelligent and oh now we see why barack went to this man's church, blah blah blah. and while i think wright is an intelligent man and brought out some interesting points on monday, i also know how arrogant he is and always has been. but nooooooo, black folks were all like sending 1000 emails a few weeks ago when they only played clips of wright on the news and you couldn't get enough of why wright was so wrongly portrayed and all this stuff. and now that barack is finally throwing wright under the bus, now everyone is confused... heck, even i'm confused! it's a trip! but what it says to me is that now this man is threatening barack's presidential chances so now he has to be eliminated. politics as usual.
interesting article
interesting article
In politics, often friends and former allies become liabilities. Such is the case with the Reverend. Obama has been lucky to avoid the race card as long as he had. Just look at the glaring silence of the usual media whores Rev Jackson and Rev Sharpton, who step up to the plate in support any public black cause that may get air time (Don't get me wrong, I respect what they do and they do speak up nationally when others refuse). Most politico's thought that Jesse and Al's stomp across the political yard would have left Obama behind in the corn fields of Iowa. But they said very little and this different sort of Negro succeeded where others quickly failed.
What I deride Rev Wright for is his timing. As a prodigious speaker, I know he is acutely aware of timing. So why speak now, before critical elections? To what purpose beyond the most arrogant? I agree he should defend himself, but why wait until such a critical time. And if his argument is that his legacy and congregation's civic causes will speak for themselves, then why the need to restate incendiary rhetoric outside of your beloved flock?
Obama's full denouncement of Wright was necessary political theater, but can he recover, get back to the issues at hand? I don't know. When folks are constantly looking for a reason not to vote for you (rather than reasons to vote for you), they will take whatever they can get (or are given).
i can dig what you're saying, but wright has been arrogant for years and apparently obama didn't feel the need to remove himself from his presence until now when the votes count. aside from that it's just funny to me to see how many people have fallen or nearly have fallen out of the grace of black folks over obama. even tavis smiley had to crawl under a rock. wow, that's just interesting to me. i certainly hope if he's elected that it will be worth it.
This issue was never about Reverend Wright's arrogance. That's a red herring.
I think you are over-estimating the willingness of white voters in this country to acknowledge the validity in the statements Reverend Wright has put forward, and you're underestimating the resulting untenable position that Senator Obama is left to hold because of the aforementioned inability to separate fact from the fancy many Americans have regarding race in the 21st Century.
Americans will hide their biases -- to a point. And Reverend Wright has consistently pushed past that "point" to his credit, and my personal satisfaction.
The problem comes into focus when a candidate of color is associated with such an "habitual line-stepper" to paraphrase Charlie Murphy. Obama then has to protect his flank from this fear of fact, and dislike for he who speaks it. As a result, Obama is left to do one of two things:
1. endanger the coalition he's attempting to build across race, class and gender while staying true to his personal opinions and defending his spiritual leader of the last two decades, or
2. distance himself from Reverend Wright to satisfy and mollify members of his own party whose liberalism only extends as far as modern issues, and who would rather leave America's dirty laundry aside, out of the debate about equality in this country.
Either is a losing proposition for Obama. But in this case, the lesser of two political evils is "throwing Wright under the bus" and it's his only choice at this moment if Obama wishes to be President, regrettably, because of the inability of others to hear the truth, and their fears of his possible "hyper-blackness."
This issue says less about Obama than it does the built-in biases held by the majority of the mainstream, mainly those in his own Democratic Party.
If the press and some voters rather castigate Obama and his pastor for highlighting the obvious deficiencies in American life, as opposed to focusing on Obama's proposed solutions -- right or wrong, good bad or indifferent -- for what ails the nation, they deserve John McCain (or for that matter Hillary Clinton).
Agreed Tony, there is a certain denial of the truth of Wright's statements by mainstream media. Ask how N.O. citizens felt about America after Katrina. Ask how children feel about the education they are receiving after they visit a suburban school. Ask the soldiers who served the time they signed up for but get their duty "extended" at the whim of the GWB. "Bitter" and "God Damn America" would be the clean version of the public commentary.
But during political seasons, it seems the truth is the furthest from the media's mind. Intead we hear whatever platform candidates push as if they were truths. The whole vetting process is a joke. There are no absolutes. McCain sought and received the endorsement of controversial conservative christian ministers. Hillary lies about Bosnia and lies when she acts like a gun toting beer swilling country girl (when she is a suburbanite who wasn't even endorsed by her hometown newspaper). Watching news now about HRC telling another lie on the trail about a Chinese company buying an Indiana company that made smartbombs could have been stopped by GOP. Turns out Bill Clinton approved the sale during his time in office. Isn't she claiming her time as first lady as experience? What the hell is going on here!
Not that long ago, I was very optimistic. Now... I am ready to sick my head in a hole and play Grand Theft Auto IV for the next six months. At least I know that is fiction.
not Grand Auto Theft IV!!!! :)