Is Obama hurting the Democratic Party by not joining forces with Hilla

[kandrathe]

Rev. Wright believes some things that are looney tunes, and he certainly isn't quiet about expressing those beliefs, but he is not a Black Supremacist, and he is certainly not the equivalent of the Klan. Let's have some perspective, please. This man has said some angry things about America, its foreign policy, and about the relative situation of blacks and whites in America. He has not hung white people from trees or put burning crosses on their lawns.

-Jester

What does Obama say about his pastor and mentor of 20 years?

"On the other end, 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, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy and in some cases pain For some, nagging questions remain.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."

*bolded by me for emphasis

The question I have Jester, is that like other bigots, does this inflame his constituency to the point of action beyond political action? Just as a bigoted white speaker might not actually hang people or burn crosses in their yards, does his hate speech fill the listener with a wrong headed sense of righteous anger that justifies retribution? The tools of this kind of retribution are not the noose and the cross, but the Glock and a drive by.

So the question is valid, even if the examples cited before are not. Substitute flagrant bigotry for overt racism and we are comparing apples to apples.

Blaming rich white people for intentionally designing and spreading the AIDS epidemic is beyond a commentary on American Foreign Policy. It is divisive and more inflammatory than blaming the AIDS epidemic on gay sex. I could go on with numerous other examples of how his twisted words may have led his flock to take violent action, such as that which was promoted by Farrakhan, Nation of Islam and other black militants. Jeremiah Wright, and Farrakhan also share more than a political animosity against Israel, they express true antisemitism in its ugliest forms.

Nobody, least of all Wright, would ever mention the full text of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech of Aug. 28, 1963... "all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!' "