rev. jeremiah wright

why don’t you watch rev. jeremiah wright’s recent public appearances for yourself instead of letting the corporate media tell you what to think?

appearance on bill moyers journal april 25, 2008 (requires adobe flash player): part 1 part 2

appearance at naacp convention april 27, 2008 (requires realplayer)

appearance at national press club april 28, 2008 (requires realplayer)

have an informed opinion, rather than one based on disinformation. don’t let the media pundits tell you what to think. maybe if you watch these videos you can make up your own mind about rev. jeremiah wright. you might even figure out that barack obama is not a muslim, if you pay close enough attention! imagine that... people actually believing things that are true instead of falsehoods. speaking of falsehoods, my biggest beef with rev. jeremiah wright is his whole belief in this “god” character. that is my main disagreement with him. but barack obama, hillary clinton, and john mccain also believe in that fictional superhero too. if we had an atheist running for president, there would not be any scandals over association with any controversial churches (unless the atheist belonged to one of the many satirical joke religions out there). imagine the lack of controversy... imagine how clear-headed and logical the candidate’s arguments would be in debates. what i do like about rev. jeremiah wright is that he does like to focus on reality, even though he still believes in the fantasy world too. he is a lot less focused on the fantasy world than most preachers.

however, his political beliefs are very similar to other people on the far left such as noam chomsky and ward churchill. as a lefty myself, i am not too put off by this, but i can see why other people who are not leftists might disagree w/ rev. wright on his political beliefs. basically, if you look at american history of killing native americans, of both black people and women being considered property, of japanese-american internment camps, of the tuskegee experiments, of segregation, and of having every single president in american history be a white male who is either christian or deist, if you look at our support of oppressive dictatorships throughout the 20th century and even today in places like latin america and the middle east, it is easy to see that the united states of america has its flaws and is not perfect, and is not morally blameless or morally superior to all other nations. this does not mean that any other nation-states on this globe are any better than us, morally speaking.

but for the political mainstream in this country, any criticism of this country is off-limits, no matter how accurate or truthful it is. i suppose that is why rev. jeremiah wright had to be denounced by all the pundits and politicians, to show how pro-american they are and how anti-american he is. forget for the moment about the religious right, about people who blamed america’s sinfulness for 9/11 and hurricane katrina, and said that those disasters were because of homosexuality, promiscuity, feminism, atheism, premarital sex, abortion, liberalism, and multiculturalism. why does the religious right get a free pass on its anti-americanism, on the fact that it has regularly blamed our nation’s supposed sinfulness for natural disasters and terrorist attacks against us? instead, the religious right gets portrayed as very patriotic, just because they stand by a president and executive branch that commits war crimes, violates the constitution, takes away our civil liberties, and gives corporations a free pass to destroy the environment. apparently, if you think 9/11 and hurricane katrina are god’s punishment for gay pride parades, but support president bush, you are patriotic, but if you criticize the united states for its history of killing native americans and considering black people and women as property, or you criticize its foreign policy, you are a terrorist-loving anti-american treasonous traitor, and probably both a communist and an islamic fundamentalist at the same time. so i can see why rev. jeremiah wright had to be denounced... he was too “controversial”. i suppose if we actually listened to the opinions of the majority of people around the world who disapprove of our country, they would be quite similar.

now of course, jeremiah wright is wrong about many things, like the idea that the government created the aids virus. but a large percentage of people believe equally ridiculous conspiracy theories. i am getting sick of the nonstop parade of people who keep emerging into the national spotlight as people who everyone needs to reject, renounce, and denounce. why do we have this culture of shaming people publicly and ruining their careers and reputations? nobody is perfect. this is america, where everyone gets a second chance. even o.j. simpson got a second chance, and got to write tell-all book about how he was a murderer (before the book was taken off the shelves). of course, rev. jeremiah wright did bring this latest controversy on himself with his recent public appearances. and he is either unaware of the fact that he is doing nothing but hurting barack obama, or he does not give a damn at all. rev. wright is very charismatic, as shown in the bill moyers interview, which showed his nicer side, and i think he may have hypnotized me with his infectious smile. i have not gotten around to seeing the naacp speech or the national press club speech, but i have heard that those are like the mr. hyde side of rev. wright, while the dr. jekyll side was the one on the bill moyers show. i will probably get around to watching them eventually, but the bill moyers interview of him made me feel much more positive towards rev. wright after watching it. now i am thinking, perhaps that was just a propaganda piece done by a sympathetic journalist, and i was duped into sympathizing with rev. jeremiah wright by the overwhelmingly favorable bias of the interviewer, bill moyers. i do not really know what to think anymore, especially now that barack obama has finally denounced his former pastor. i will watch the other videos later, and maybe have a completely different opinion then.