Comments on: More Gifts From Obama’s Mentor

By: Igor R.

Igor R. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:30:35 +0000

How can something that sounds so Wright be so Wrong?

By: Machiavelli

Machiavelli — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:57:10 +0000

Let me quote your first comment here Fit fit: “The American Civil War was not fought to end slavery… The abolition of slavery was a result of the war, not the reason.”
Now, look again at what I wrote: “While initially (1861 - 1863) the American Civil War was fought to keep the union together, post the Emancipation Proclamation (1863 - 1865), the war added another de facto goal of ending slavery. So, whether it was started over that or not, the important thing is that in the end, that became a defining feature of it.”
You seem to think that the end of slavery is merely a RESULT of the Civil War, not a REASON for it being fought.
Whereas, once Lincoln laid down the Emancipation Proclamation, the end of slavery became a doctrine of the Union, and it became a GOAL of the Union; hence a REASON to prosecute the war. Attempting to say that because preservation of the Union was the first reason for the Civil War somehow invalidates the abolition of slavery as a secondary reason for fighting the war is disingenuous. So no, I’m not “echoing” your point, I’m pointing out the error in your reasoning.

By: Fit fit

Fit fit — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:21:14 +0000

Machiavelli,

As I said, it was a result of the war not the reason. You called me on the carpet to echo my point?

Rev. Wright said several other things just as stupid as the HIV remark (white people killed Jesus) but Curt’s statement about blaming: “this is pretty much ALL you have done in your sermons” is not true. You don’t have to sit through “all his sermons” to get that.

By: yonason

yonason — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:20:53 +0000

The Civil War was, in essence, fought over the issue of slavery, the Dems being for and the Reps being against. In fact…

“The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by a group of renegade Democrats, Whigs, and political independents who opposed the expansion of SLAVERY into new U.S. territories and states. What began as a single-issue, independent party became a major political force in the United States. Six years after the new party was formed, Republican nominee ABRAHAM LINCOLN won the U.S. presidential election.”

360,000 union lives were lost, over 100,000 in combat, to keep the USA together and to free the slaves. It seems to me that in stead of reparations, which is one of Wright’s (and probably Barack’s) agendas, they owe White Americans a thank you, - well, at least Republicans and their supporters, anyway.

By: Machiavelli

Machiavelli — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:49:11 +0000

Fit fit, time to call you on your errors. While initially (1861 - 1863) the American Civil War was fought to keep the union together, post the Emancipation Proclamation (1863 - 1865), the war added another de facto goal of ending slavery. So, whether it was started over that or not, the important thing is that in the end, that became a defining feature of it. Also, you should take into account that the reason that the southern states broke away in the first place was that an anti-slavery Republican (Lincoln) was elected, and they feared that federal laws would be used to overturn an institution that was legal on the state level. Yes, that’s a states’ rights argument, but the legality of slavery was intertwined with the times, witness the tortured Kansas-Nebraska Act and the like. If any people from the south are pining for the “good old days of the CSA” I’m not particularly worried if they feel insulted by my taking of the moral high ground. Fortunately, if anything I think people from the southern states are a more patriotic lot (and not in a waving the Confederate Flag way) in the modern day; witness the fact that they make up a disproportionate number of the personnel in our Armed Services.
Also, I’m curious how I could be unclear about where Jeremiah Wright is placing blame when he explicitly states in what you call a “sound-bite” that the U.S. (white) Government is responsible for cooking up the HIV virus to spread amongst the black population? There’s not much to be confused about there Fit fit, so I think you’re trying the cheap “you haven’t sat through all his sermons” tactic to divert away the well deserved censure that he and his disciple BHO are taking because of his hateful message.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:22:07 +0000

If you take the stories in the bible literally, anfd the characters in it as historically reliable, that’s your own business.

i’m not here to argue that point.

By: Richard Romano

Richard Romano — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:08:07 +0000

Dan:

“And these characters are partly mythological”

Show me how you can justify this statement.

By: Fit fit

Fit fit — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:48:30 +0000

Two things:

The American Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It is insulting to the Southerners who died for you to claim a moral high ground that did not exist. The abolition of slavery was a result of the war, not the reason.

You do not know what the Rev. Wright’s sermons have been saying about blame and responsibilty. You are basing your opinion on soundbites.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:45:37 +0000

Mauretania had slavery til the 1980s. Saudis had slavery til the 1960s.

The Sudanese are almost certainly up to no good today. normally it’s to do with sexual slavery and once upon a time Eunuchs. It went on for about 1300 years among Muslims. Approx 20 million trafficed to Muslim or Arab traders. Ironic considering the charter for the NOI. Before the 1650s Eurpeans normally enslaved their lower classes in serfdom–Muslims plundered Sub-saharan africa for slaves more persistently and continuously than the Americans and Europeans.

The unique thing about the West and slavery is that slavery was self consciously abolished and never practiced in the domestic territory (of the UK France Holland etc). In Eastern Europe The Russians had serfs until the 1860s–blond hair blue eyed slaves! About the same time that the US abolished the practise.

The antebellum south was an aberration even within the British Empire and later the US where land was normally expropriated from natives and settled by immigrants from Europe. It is exclusively associated with the cash crops of Tobacco, Cotton and Sugar.

The engaged in quite a bit of the trade in the 18th century but ultimately it was always unpopular with many people within the western countries that allowed it.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:23:00 +0000

Wright is…

Isiah? Samuel? Jeremiah? Jacob?Isaac?Joshua?

oh, for the love of god.

He’s a mental midget. And these characters are partly mythological. We need flesh and blood–not stories…not half crazed egomaniacs.

By: Richard Romano

Richard Romano — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:45:02 +0000

America and ancient Israel cannot be compared on contemporaneous notions of nation-statehood — one is a republic, the other was a theocracy. Given this, Jeremiah and Isaiah occupied much different, and integral roles, in their day, than does someone like Rev. Wright today. For one, as a theocracy, Israel’s prophets were commissioned directly by God to point out the sins of the Israelites, who had repeatedly broken the covenant relationship they agreed to. These prophets came with morally justifiable concerns, and indictments, on where Israel had transgressed the law.

Rev. Wright and others like him, repeatedly circulate false statements about America, HIV was created by the government, crack-cocaine is a ploy to keep blacks down, and the wanton use of atomic weapons on innocent civilians. Add to this rank anti-Semitism and hatred of white people, and you have the makings of a deranged personality, not the moral voice of one sent by God.

America, a nation that has given billions to help the poor in Africa, billions to help those in Indonesia (during the Tsunami), and billions to liberate two nations from monstrous tyranny (Iraq and Afghanistan), and most of all, 4,000 + brave men and women, our greatest treasure, who gave their lives for our freedom and others’ freedom; America cannot nor must not be compared with a profligate Israel who neglected the poor among them, perverted justice on numerous scales, and made allegiances with pagan cultures who were historically monstrous and evil.

A introductory course in biblical literacy is in order for Mickey, and for men like Rev. Wright, Fr. Michael Pfleger. and Rev. Eric Lee.

By: Machiavelli

Machiavelli — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:40:04 +0000

Mickey, I’m not going to debate your Biblical scholarship, except to say that we’re living in the New Testament world, not the Old Testament one.
On that point is where I’m going to rip into Jeremiah Wright, because what he preaches in his sermons is a doctrine of hate in general; and a doctrine of black victimhood / ultimate superiority that is anathema to anything that passed out of Christ’s lips. If anything, it’s more akin to what is preached by the Nation of Islam.
However, history is a strong suit of mine, and I can confidently say that your historical comparisons are largely spurious as well. Babylon, and later the Persian (I think that’s what you meant by “Syria”) Empires were autocracies, ruled by a single king, and bear little semblance to the American republic. They suffered from the usual maladies that autocracies do, and withered as a result. As for Soviet Russia (also autocratic in its own fashion), it fell apart because its doctrine was odious to those that it was forced upon, as evidenced by the peoples of Eastern Europe rejecting it in masse in 1989. The British Empire declined not just because it forced a colonial hierarchy on the territories it controlled (which it might have been able to maintain), but more so because it was engaged on the front-lines of two world wars (France and Germany declined for the same reason). In spite of hysterics by those critical of our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of those is draining our treasury at any approximation of the rate that WWI and WWII destroyed the economies of the states on the front-lines.
I will grant that the U.S. does share certain similarities with the Roman Republic, but not the Empire: Pax Romana & Pax Americana, representative government, and citizen soldiers. We are exhibiting some of its flaws as well, though not to a catastrophic degree. Most importantly though, we do not actually conquer and subjugate nations that we have quarrel with; we invade, relieve them of oppression and install a democracy, then depart (perhaps leaving a military base or two behind, but no longer interfering with the nation’s politics or society), like in Germany, Japan, Panama, and our intervention to save South Korea from Communist invasion. Rome actually took up permanent residence, deployed governors, colonists and the like. But, like Rome, America also attracts immigrants from all over the world, who seek a better “freer” life for themselves. Rome’s flaws, and ultimate descent are a lesson to be learned from - not an inevitability. American power, if it declines, will be because of our own failure to maintain it, not because of what you seem to perceive as our hubris. History is a great source for learning from mankind’s previous mistakes, not some sort of “fate” prediction.
Finally, an economics lesson for you; what we are entering is called a “recession,” they come and go as an annoying part of the economic cycle (as of yet, no one has been able to invent a recession proof economy). We’ve had them before and come out of them; we’ll have them again in the future too. Even when we had a full scale “depression” in the 1930’s, that did not result in the U.S. imploding or such. Back then people predicted it as the end of Capitalism too, so your tone doesn’t surprise me, but as anyone can see, that wasn’t borne out empirically.

By: Reverend Wright, the Gift that Keeps on Giving, Provides more Hate as he Criticizes Media (Fox News) during Eulogy at Eugene Pincham’s Funeral | Scared Monkeys

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:26:33 +0000

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By: Mike's America

Mike's America — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:26:24 +0000

Mickey: If you had a point it got lost in the Tower of Babble.

By: Susie

Susie — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:21:32 +0000

Mickey,I dont know how you can defend Rev.Wright.America is far from perfect but what country is? When Wright was busy damning America for bombing Japan,why didnt he also damn the Japanese for raping Nanking? And then damn the Chinese for what theyve done to Tibet…and circle the globe damning every genocide,war and dictatorship.America has done alot of wrong but its also done alot of good.Its very easy to point faults (and they should be adressed) but the problems of the world dont all fall on our shoulders.