Yes, tw -- all of the luminaries deserve a spot, but I don't have space to include all of the hateful and incendiary bigots human nature seems to breed.
Too, I would sicken of their images before long. . .
Lisa, Your diptych would be more accurate if you had made it a triptych. First photo- KKK, "Damn Blacks" Second photo- lynched black american hanging from tree, "Dead Black" Third photo - Obama and minister, "Damn America" Some aspects of America should indeed be damned. Kevin in Granville
The Rev Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Ohio says the US was ordained by God to defeat Islam. He has many inflamatory and racist sermons yet John McCain called him " one of the truly great leaders in America, an moral compass, a spiritual guide" and was glad to take his support helping him win in Ohio.
And we're worried about radical religious clerics in the middle east!
Lisa, From what I've seen on youtube of Jeremiah Wright I don't see any equivalence between him and the KKK. Do you have any concrete examples of what you would term " hatred" that he has said? There's a good article about this on the Christian Science Moniter web site titled "Did Obama's pastor preach hate?" Kevin in Granville
Won't have the time today, but yes, from what I've read, Wright strikes me as a wacko happy to harness anger and hatred to secure his following.
Thanks for the Monitor link, which I will look at.
Generally, racists and bigots will harness some measure of truth in their message to prop up their agenda. But an admixture of truth is not the bar I look for.
Yes, the point about radicalism is exactly right. We will be writing something on that topic soon.
"Manifest Destiny" and the City on the Hill concepts are still alive and well. As I recall, you guys wrote a nice tune about religious treacle.
We must remember, these messages are not really that old for the brigand Americans. It takes people a long time to evolve. A few hundred years is not much.
TW Ref your post 1500/ 31 Mar. Aren't the words and actions of GWB an embodiment of these thoughts that are expressed by several clerics and government functionaries.This entire goat screw has undeniable religeous fingerprints all over it's putrid little body. Thank you lord. thank you jesus.
From the CS Monitor: "Prophetic preaching. . . [says], 'This is what's happening. God is not pleased. We need to do something about it.' "
I personally don't need an intermediary to tell me what god doesn't like; I can see for myself what is wrong.
But if I did go to church, I don't think I'd be enlightened nor uplifted by Rev. Wright's "White folks' greed is the reason for a world in need." Give me a break.
I'm a "white folk" and I'm not greedy, and me and mine don't ride anyone's back. I'm not gonna take the rap, and I'm not alone.
The reasons for a "world in need" are multitudinous. Try overpopulation for one -- one that the church happens to sanction.
I'm not going to re-read the man's clap-trap, but anyone who would follow it without question is suspect to me. For some dialog on the topic see Slate:
Lisa, I don't see that saying something like "White folks' greed is the reason for a world in need." puts Wright on the same level as the KKK. It's not a fair or accurate comparison. He seems fairly wacky to me but no worse than many other Americans. I also don't believe that Obama is an unquestioning follower of Rev. Wright if that is the implication. He's not an idiot. Kevin in Granville
True, Kevin, Obama is not an idiot. All the more reason for concern that he has chosen Mr. Wright as his mentor of the last 20 years.
The graphic was not meant as a perfect equation. It was a play on "men of the cloth." If you will, people who seek refuge behind obscuring or validating garb.
The KKK sees blacks as a cause of the world's ills, or at least, blacks in America. Rev. Wright sees whites as the problem. Seems a pretty equitable, simplistic and unpalatable view of things from both sides.
Words are no more valid because one claims to be an intermediary receiving divine guidance. Anger is a deadly sin because it corrosive and corrupting. Anger can damage and it can kill. One can use anger directly, or indirectly, with the same results.
I'm just not seeing anything in Rev. Wright's speeches that's as awful as the MSM is making it out to be. Not religious, myself, not interested in sermons and I find myself in disagreement at some level with most of them, but this particular preacher doesn't seem much different than the rest to me. And I have to agree that an awful lot of problems in this world can be racked up to greedy white people. Not to say that there aren't lots of other issues, but that does seem to be one of them. The whole thing seems like a tempest in a teapot to me, the same kind of thinking that turned a blow job into a national catastrophe.
I receive my p.o.v. neither from the MSM or the pulpit.
I can speak only from that perspective, and from the sermons I have read and heard in my life, Wright's rhetoric appears to agitate in a bad way. One has to recognize the reason people go to church. It is either a civilizing or a divisive institution; too often, the latter.
Wright is a combination of New Age riding guilt (for the white parishioners) and anger (for the black.) No good.
Jim, "The graphic was not meant as a perfect equation" , is an understatement. KKK members mask their identity, have secret meetings and writings, look forward to a real race war and the extermination of Blacks and Jews in America. They have lynched and killed in the past and they are still with us, though they have rebranded themselves. Rev. Wright and Obama wear no masks, express their opinions in full public view (in writing and on DVD), have never killed anyone that I know of and are nowhere near calling for any form of violence, or the extermination of whites in America. I don't buy the "white guilt" concept but I do acknowledge that the reality in America is that a very small proportion of the population (who happen to be historically white) controls a disproportionate part of the wealth and power in the country, and that they have always contrived to keep it that way at the expense of the bulk of the population white, black , red or other.
You won't find much ethnic variety or people from the wrong social class in Skull and Bones. Kevin in Granville
Anon, well at least we're both thinking. I think. Of couse it's in poor taste, that's why i did it. that's why we have freedom of expression and why i don't get paid to write. jim
posted by Lisa at 11:54 AM
19 Comments:
Lisa,
You forgot to put Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and John Hagee in there.
Yes, tw -- all of the luminaries deserve a spot, but I don't have space to include all of the hateful and incendiary bigots human nature seems to breed.
Too, I would sicken of their images before long. . .
Lisa,
Your diptych would be more accurate if you had made it a triptych.
First photo- KKK, "Damn Blacks"
Second photo- lynched black american hanging from tree, "Dead Black"
Third photo - Obama and minister, "Damn America"
Some aspects of America should indeed be damned.
Kevin in Granville
Kevin,
The additional panel you suggest has already been roundly damned by most Americans, hence the success of the Civil Rights movement.
Hatred is hatred is destructive, not constructive. It feeds upon itself. Hatred is never righteous.
Anger (hatred) is a deadly sin, for one who supposedly follows the words of the Good Book.
The Rev Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Ohio says the US was ordained by God to defeat Islam. He has many inflamatory and racist sermons yet John McCain called him " one of the truly great leaders in America, an moral compass, a spiritual guide" and was glad to take his support helping him win in Ohio.
And we're worried about radical religious clerics in the middle east!
Lisa,
From what I've seen on youtube of Jeremiah Wright I don't see any equivalence between him and the KKK. Do you have any concrete examples of what you would term " hatred" that he has said?
There's a good article about this on the Christian Science Moniter web site titled "Did Obama's pastor preach hate?"
Kevin in Granville
Kevin,
Won't have the time today, but yes, from what I've read, Wright strikes me as a wacko happy to harness anger and hatred to secure his following.
Thanks for the Monitor link, which I will look at.
Generally, racists and bigots will harness some measure of truth in their message to prop up their agenda. But an admixture of truth is not the bar I look for.
tw,
Yes, the point about radicalism is exactly right. We will be writing something on that topic soon.
"Manifest Destiny" and the City on the Hill concepts are still alive and well. As I recall, you guys wrote a nice tune about religious treacle.
We must remember, these messages are not really that old for the brigand Americans. It takes people a long time to evolve. A few hundred years is not much.
Sometimes, it takes a rude comeuppance. . .
Kevin.
We do not focus on the details of words and hatred but rather the idea that hiding behind cloth is always a sign of something amiss.
TW
Ref your post 1500/ 31 Mar.
Aren't the words and actions of GWB an embodiment of these thoughts that are expressed by several clerics and government functionaries.This entire goat screw has undeniable religeous fingerprints all over it's putrid little body.
Thank you lord. thank you jesus.
kevin,
From the CS Monitor: "Prophetic preaching. . . [says], 'This is what's happening. God is not pleased. We need to do something about it.' "
I personally don't need an intermediary to tell me what god doesn't like; I can see for myself what is wrong.
But if I did go to church, I don't think I'd be enlightened nor uplifted by Rev. Wright's "White folks' greed is the reason for a world in need." Give me a break.
I'm a "white folk" and I'm not greedy, and me and mine don't ride anyone's back. I'm not gonna take the rap, and I'm not alone.
The reasons for a "world in need" are multitudinous. Try overpopulation for one -- one that the church happens to sanction.
I'm not going to re-read the man's clap-trap, but anyone who would follow it without question is suspect to me. For some dialog on the topic see Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2187773/
Lisa,
I don't see that saying something like
"White folks' greed is the reason for a world in need." puts Wright on the same level as the KKK.
It's not a fair or accurate comparison.
He seems fairly wacky to me but no worse than many other Americans.
I also don't believe that Obama is an unquestioning follower of Rev. Wright if that is the implication. He's not an idiot.
Kevin in Granville
True, Kevin, Obama is not an idiot. All the more reason for concern that he has chosen Mr. Wright as his mentor of the last 20 years.
The graphic was not meant as a perfect equation. It was a play on "men of the cloth." If you will, people who seek refuge behind obscuring or validating garb.
The KKK sees blacks as a cause of the world's ills, or at least, blacks in America. Rev. Wright sees whites as the problem. Seems a pretty equitable, simplistic and unpalatable view of things from both sides.
Words are no more valid because one claims to be an intermediary receiving divine guidance. Anger is a deadly sin because it corrosive and corrupting. Anger can damage and it can kill. One can use anger directly, or indirectly, with the same results.
I'm just not seeing anything in Rev. Wright's speeches that's as awful as the MSM is making it out to be. Not religious, myself, not interested in sermons and I find myself in disagreement at some level with most of them, but this particular preacher doesn't seem much different than the rest to me. And I have to agree that an awful lot of problems in this world can be racked up to greedy white people. Not to say that there aren't lots of other issues, but that does seem to be one of them. The whole thing seems like a tempest in a teapot to me, the same kind of thinking that turned a blow job into a national catastrophe.
kootenay,
I receive my p.o.v. neither from the MSM or the pulpit.
I can speak only from that perspective, and from the sermons I have read and heard in my life, Wright's rhetoric appears to agitate in a bad way. One has to recognize the reason people go to church. It is either a civilizing or a divisive institution; too often, the latter.
Wright is a combination of New Age riding guilt (for the white parishioners) and anger (for the black.) No good.
Jim,
"The graphic was not meant as a perfect equation" , is an understatement.
KKK members mask their identity, have secret meetings and writings, look forward to a real race war and the extermination of Blacks and Jews in America. They have lynched and killed in the past and they are still with us, though they have rebranded themselves.
Rev. Wright and Obama wear no masks, express their opinions in full public view (in writing and on DVD), have never killed anyone that I know of and are nowhere near calling for any form of violence, or the extermination of whites in America.
I don't buy the "white guilt" concept but I do acknowledge that the reality in America is that a very small proportion of the population (who happen to be historically white) controls a disproportionate part of the wealth and power in the country, and that they have always contrived to keep it that way at the expense of the bulk of the population white, black , red or other.
You won't find much ethnic variety or people from the wrong social class in Skull and Bones.
Kevin in Granville
Jeremiah was (W)right.
This is in poor taste, I think.
Anon, well at least we're both thinking. I think.
Of couse it's in poor taste, that's why i did it. that's why we have freedom of expression and why i don't get paid to write. jim
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