Religious Resignation

[Occhidiangela]

David Duke believes that Whites are inherently superior to Blacks, that the nation should be segregated along racial lines, that Judaism is a mental illness, and that Black people are no better than animals.

Rev. Wright argues that racism is abhorrent, that no race is superior to another, that historical racial divisions should be ended, and that God loves all people.

I don't think you've paid much attention to what Wright's been saying. Llike Duke, he uses the race card as a political blade. That's the point I am trying to make here, that you choose to ignore.

He's a loudmouth. He's dead wrong about a whole range of subjects, and is even willing to flirt with strange and outdated racial theories about "different ways of thinking". But he's not David Duke, he's not the black equivalent of the Nazis, and I find it incomprehensible that otherwise reasonable people are making these comparisons.

Then get out of your box. Your inability to see beyond the Nazi paradigm is part of the neocon rhetorical weakness. Please don't fall into that trap yourself. You can be a White Nationalist or a Klansman without being a Nazi. Try to understand that.

The worst that can be said of him is that he turns a blind eye to the dark side of Louis Farrakhan, which, while more than enough to sour me on him, does not turn him into the Grand Wizard of a black KKK.

That's the worst you will say about him. That isn't the worst problem with his decades out of date political rhetoric. That Trinity is a church that is also about empowerment, another critical element to its success, is sadly overshadowed by the message of racialism. If you bother to go to the home page of that church, which I did over a year ago when I first heard of it, you will find an interesting, almost Garveyesque, Afrocentrism that only a blind man will not recognize as racialist in character.

It's for the best that Obama has left the church, as most of America seems to think the same way as we have seen on this board, that a radical black church is basically just the mirror image of the Nazis, or of the KKK, or whatever.

Nope. I use Duke as an example of an American politician who used, and now uses race (since he's basically placed himself beyond the pale in terms of politics (pun intended)) as a political weapon or tool. Your decision not to grasp that is unfortunate. The Nazis have nothing to do with it.

That's an anchor no politician can afford not to cut. But I think there is a serious perspective problem, both in the US generally, and on this board specifically.

I'd say the problem here, Jester, is a Canadian demonstrating once again a failure to grasp American politics. You are the one trying to shoehorn the Nazi into the conversation, and in doing so only display another measure of laziness or ignorance. I'll go with intellectually lazy, since you tend to be quick on the uptake.

David Duke: a racist, and a racialist, for sure. A Nazi? No. An anti-Semite: yeah, I think so. Learn a new term: White Nationalist. It's what a particular sector, small as I understand it, of American political opinion calls itself. They seem to be a lot more libertarian, and anarchist, than socialist or national socialist in political leanings. I've been trying to discern their influence on American political life since I got back from the desert. I am still worried that another Tim McVeigh will arise, or a network of them, influenced by a certain feeling of betrayal or disgust for the American political class (party being irrelevant to that crowd) and being pissed off ex soldiers, will be motivated to pull a stunt similar to what McVeigh pulled. In trying to figure out where that sentiment comes from, I stumbled across the White Nationalist sentiment. It is related to Paleoconservatism, but has a considerably more vicious core to it. The WNs give lip service to the political idea that the Constitution supported the secession of the South, that the Fourteenth Amendment is null and void, that the 16th was fraudulently based, and a whole lot else that is peculiarily American in character. Socialism and National Socialism are distinctly European mindsets, and creations, as is and was Fascism. What Duke and the various strains of WN are all about is very much made in America. (No dodging that one.)

Not all racists, and not all racialists, are Nazis. See Farakhan for a supberb example.

Godwin ought to be getting tired, the way he's overused.

Occhi