"I'm GGG and I approve this message."

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You have profoundly illustrated that reading and understanding are two different things.

Cite? Example? Anything at all to back this up?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Not only haven't I seen the CDs he (Wright?) distributed, I haven't seen an article about the CDs he distributed, and notwithstanding direct and polite requests to both Diane and Spanky, I haven't even seen a link to an article about the CDs he distributed.

I would add that I have little or no idea what my church's clergy are doing during the 166.5 hours or more each week when I am not in church. Except that, as an Episcopalian, I assume they are occasionally schtupping someone of the same sex.

From Obama's speech:

"we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide...."

Has Obama mischaracterized some of Wright's comments?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Except that, as an Episcopalian, I assume they are occasionally schtupping someone of the same sex.

More or less than if they were Catholic?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I do.

I'll take him at his word. Say what you want about Obama, but you have no reason to think he is a liar.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
More or less than if they were Catholic?

No more or less, just older.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
Obama's defense of Wright and his claim he wants to bring unity and decrease racial tension are in direct contradiction to each other. He can't have it both ways.

Spanky --

That was a thoughtful breakdown. I think you can see I'm sympathetic to some of your points, but we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Obama's speech was, for the most part, hardly a defense of Wright. And if you want to bring unity and decrease racial tension, you have to engage people where they are.

One difference between Wright and the Nation of Islam on the one hand and Hezbollah/Hamas, etc. on the other is that Wright and the Nation are Americans. Their views are extreme, but they are hardly alone.

We have to live with them, and we should want to reconcile with them as much as possible. To do so requires continued engagement and an attempt at understanding. I think that casting them out of the discourse is just another way to ignore the problem by hoping it quietly goes away.

S_A_M

S_A_M

[Spanky]

This is just from the first two links on Google when you put in Wright. Do we need anymore?

From ABC News;

he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.

Senator Obama's church's magazine, The Trumpet, recently honored Louis Farrakhan at a banquet for his devotion to "truth." The magazine quoted Obama's "spiritual mentor," Rev. Wright, as praising Farrakhan for his "astounding and eyeopening" analysis of the "racial ills of this nation," a "perspective" that is "helpful and honest." Farrakhan, of course, is notorious for inflammatory and bigoted comments against whites in general, and Jews (not all of whom, I should note, are white) in particular. The Nation of Islam, which he leads, sells and promotes publications promoting various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Cite? Example? Anything at all to back this up?

Much of your post, and the words I quoted in particular, make it clear that you just didn't understand Obama's speech. I don't really know how to help you understand, but he wasn't "defending" Wright, as you seem to think. Maybe this will help:

• In his speech in Philadelphia this morning, Barack Obama revealed that he is most definitely his own man.
  
  Those who have found Obama's statements of dissociation from his pastor Jeremiah Wright's statements a tad studious must now be satisfied. This time, Obama did not rest with incendiary and divisive--words which harbor potential toleration (i.e. maybe a little divisiveness is healthy?).
  
  He pegged Wright's recreational alienation as wrong, as stereotyping, as a "profound mistake," as founded upon a canard that America has made no progress on race.
  
  It must be understood what a maverick statement this is from a 40-something black politician. In the black community one does not sass one's elders. One is expected to show a particular deference, understandably, to the generation who fought on the barricades of the Civil Rights movement. That is, to people of Jeremiah Wright's vintage.
  
  For a light-skinned half-white Ivy League-educated black man to repudiate, in clear language and repeatedly, the take on race of people like Julian Bond and Nikki Giovanni is not only honest but truly bold.
  
  A certain strain of black bloggers will be blowing their tops for a week, while some black writers of mature years will remind us in editorials that Wright's vision of America is more present-tense than Obama's speech implies.

John McWhorter

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man


We have to live with them, and we should want to reconcile with them as much as possible. To do so requires continued engagement and an attempt at understanding. I think that casting them out of the discourse is just another way to ignore the problem by hoping it quietly goes away.

S_A_M

S_A_M

has Obama ever spoken out when a white guy said racially stupid things? did he ask people to forgive the guy?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Has Obama mischaracterized some of Wright's comments?

How would I know? I keep asking for links to whatever your oppo research people have dug up about what Wright has said and whether Obama was there, but so far, nada.

eta: So far, a couple lines from one ABC story, but obviously not the stuff you and Diane were reading. From Diane's posts, I know that Wright was preaching "Kill Whitey!" every Sunday, and I don't see that in there.

As for the Farrakhan thing, Obama has explained convincingly -- to me, if not to his political enemies -- that he knew nothing about it and disagreed with it. I have had that conversation elsewhere, and IIRC the magazine was no longer affiliated with the church and the comments that ran in it were not Wright's. Wright spoke in public, but Obama wouldn't have known what he said unless he attended (which no one thinks he did) or tracked down the videotape after the fact (which he didn't but enterprising conservatives apparently did, natch).

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
has Obama ever spoken out when a white guy said racially stupid things? did he ask people to forgive the guy?

I have no idea. Huckabee has now sort of done that in reverse.

I know you're getting at the KKK -- David Duke sort of stuff, and I thought about that while I was posting. I think Obama's speech states that we must not cast those folks out either, but, if you are dealing with people of good will, try to recognize where it is coming from and engage in a dialogue.

S_A_M

P.S. If you're thinking of Trent Lott -- that was just "gotcha" politics (and I admittedly took glee in it), but Obama was just an Ill. State Senator back then.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I have no idea. Huckabee has now sort of done that in reverse.

I know you're getting at the KKK -- David Duke sort of stuff, and I thought about that while I was posting. I think Obama's speech states that we must not cast those folks out either, but, if you are dealing with people of good will, try to recognize where it is coming from and engage in a dialogue.

S_A_M

P.S. If you're thinking of Trent Lott -- that was just "gotcha" politics (and I admittedly took glee in it), but Obama was just an Ill. State Senator back then.

google obama and imus

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
google obama and imus

Awww, SHIT yeah! See, Hankster is setting out little clues for us and shit. Ask us a question, then gives us a little tidbit - not much, but just a little. Make you go out into the interwebs and look things up? Question yourself a little bit? Then he will Do It Again. Before you know it, by 11:32pm tonite, you'll be strung out on Red Bull and standing at some internet cafe in Richmond, and you will be so fucked up, so politically bound up in knots, that you'll be ready to donate to the McCain campaign and the Swifties, both.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Awww, SHIT yeah! See, Hankster is setting out little clues for us and shit. Ask us a question, then gives us a little tidbit - not much, but just a little. Make you go out into the interwebs and look things up? Question yourself a little bit? Then he will Do It Again. Before you know it, by 11:32pm tonite, you'll be strung out on Red Bull and standing at some internet cafe in Richmond, and you will be so fucked up, so politically bound up in knots, that you'll be ready to donate to the McCain campaign and the Swifties, both.

On the big spectrum, I put your pastor closer to your grandmother than to someguy you hear on the radio in the morning. But maybe I'm not appreciating the role that talk radio plays for some conservatives?

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
How would I know? I keep asking for links to whatever your oppo research people have dug up about what Wright has said and whether Obama was there, but so far, nada.

Whatever your point is about citation, why don't you just make it and move on. Footage of Wright is all over Youtube from parts of different sermons making the statements or there are quotes of his and nobody has asserted that they are inaccurate. And my posts today referencing Wright's statements had nothing to do with whether Obama was at the particular sermon or not.