Bad American

I wanted to let the comments roll in a little before commenting myself on Rev. Jeremiah wright’s speech to the National Press Club this morning.

I did not see the Bill Moyers interview but I watched Wright’s comments in full on CNN this morning. I even opened by store late to hear them in full.

A few openers from other sources:

The speech in full on Huffpo with commentary by Politico’s Ben Smith:

Well, if you had any doubt about whether Jeremiah Wright’s new high profile was in the service of the Obama campaign, his cheerfully combative performance in a Q&A at the National Press Club should put that to rest.

“We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he siad he would not get elected,” Wright said of Obama’s denunciations. “Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability … based on polls,” he said.

He also closely parsed Obama’s words.

“He did not denounce me. He dismissed himself from some of my remarks. Like most of you not having heard the sermon,” he said. “He had to distance himself because he’s a politician from what the media was saying I had said which was anti-American. He said I didn’t offer any words of hope — how did he know? He didn’t hear the rest of the sermon,” he said. …

Wright explained his media tour, repeating that criticism wasn’t an attack on him or Obama, but on the black church.

“If you think i’m gonna let you talk about my momma and her religious tradition and my daddy and his religoius tradtion … you’ve got another think coming,” he said.

Eric Deggans in Huffpo

But by now it’s obvious Obama is deep in a sound-bite-fed, image-waged war. A man smart as Wright knows it doesn’t really matter what he says. He’s been reduced to an emotional image — the Willie Horton of 2008 — a boogeyman of black nationalism and aggression, used as a prop to make the professorial Obama look like a smooth talker hiding more radical inclinations.

Dave Winer from Huffpo on the Moyers interview:

Watching Wright, I wondered if Sean Hannity’s preacher could stand up to the kind of objectification this man has withstood. What about Tim Russert’s? How about the people who are close to Charlie Gibson and Andrea Mitchell? And how about the CEOs of Time-Warner, GE, the Sulzbergers and the Murdochs? These people have never run for office, they’ve never been vetted or elected. Could they come out so well after being put through the wringer that Wright has been through.

I think the silence comes from the fact that there still is some humanity in the press and in the blogosphere, and those who watched Moyers and really listened to Wright, realized that he’s not a liability to Obama, he’s an asset. At least some of the polish, the quiet confidence, self-respect, intelligence and grace we see in Obama must have rubbed off this man.

Reuters coverage of the NPC speech:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, blasted news media he said had sensationalized his remarks in an often confrontational appearance at a reporters’ club on Monday.

But the Chicago preacher stood by the fiery sermons that have dogged Obama’s Democratic presidential campaign since they gained public attention in March.

“You cannot do terrorism on other people and not expect it to come back to you,” Wright said at the National Press Club when asked about a speech in which he asserted the September 11 attacks were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy.

Asked about another sermon in which he suggested the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to kill black people, Wright also did not retreat.

“Based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything,” he said.

MY VIEW

Ok, let’s stop right here, take a deep breath and think about this.

Some observations first:

I don’t know much about the relative civility of the National Press Club but it did seem at times as though this was a very contentious crowd for Wright. True, it seemed like a good number of Wright’s vocal supporters were there and made their feelings known. However, it also seemed as though the questions were absolutely of the ‘gotcha’ variety, worded in very provoking manner, and, occasionally, challenges to Wright were shouted from the floor which I assume is against decorum.

Wright reminded me a great deal of Malcolm X in the way he handled the press at this event. Contentious as Malcolm was but with two guns going for him: his own rhetorical style and an unassailable knowledge of the Bible. No one could trip the man up on scripture although some tried.

I have never heard ANYONE take a chunk out of the press’s ass the way Wright did this morning. He did not back down one inch and definitely made a lot of eternal enemies in the media today.

I also fear that, like Malcolm and especially Dr. Martin Luther King before him, Wright may have signed his own death warrant through his combativeness. For today I think Wright trampled over the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the movement to claim Dr. King’s mantle as the pre-eminent spokesperson for the civil rights movement today. In that vein, attacking the US government straight up, he will undoubtedly gain a whole new set of followers on both sides of the racial equation.

We have freedom of speech in this country. UNTIL you gain a following that might actually challenge the status quo in a tangible way. Mark my words, Rev. Wright just put a bullseye on his chest. I wonder if he knows it.

I was greatly impressed by Rev. Wright’s courage this morning. Very little he said wasn’t the historical truth although we are quite aware how willfully ignorant people are in this country of their own history. He has truly given the haters a sword to use against him but he has done so willingly. He is a man of the word - both Biblically and historically, and will not be turned around.

This was, without a doubt, the most incendiary thing he said this morning:

Asked about another sermon in which he suggested the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to kill black people, Wright also did not retreat.

“Based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything,” he said.

I agree with Wright as well. There is NOTHING that this government, regardless of who is the POTUS, is capable of doing. Ever since that rat bastard Harry Truman created the CIA (National Security Act 1947), everything and anything is on the table. Just as the Iranians whose original bone they picked with us was our own CIA assisted overthrow of their duly elected President in 1953.

My soul sister Big Ass Belle posted an excellent thumbnail sketch of the crimes this nation committed against its own black citizens here (includes a link to the Moyers interview):

It’s so easy to stay on the surface of things, surface thinking, not bothering to go any deeper than what’s just obviously apparent because it’s easy and quick and much less painful. But the reality is that this country has infected people with diseases in order to study the results. Right here in this country, in an experiment running from 1932 to 1972, scientists withheld treatment from black men with syphilis in order to see how the disease would run its course. Even after 1947, when the disease was curable with penicillin, treatment was withheld even though it could have saved the lives of the study participants because scientists wanted to see exactly how the disease kills. Participants were prevented from seeking treatment elsewhere and the study wasn’t discontinued until it was leaked to the press. Black men. Expendable. Of no real import, nothing more than lab rats.

So yeah, the US has done some dirty shit to its people, especially its people of darker hues. But drugs? Seriously? Oh . . . well, there have always been vague rumors about the CIA and dope in Vietnam. And the CIA and dope in South America. The CIA and military and dope and Iran-Contra. There are whole websites devoted to this and I won’t go into it. But I will say that on this point, and at this point in time, I would put nothing past my government. Nothing.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how many people come to the same conclusion: we wouldn’t put ANYTHING past our own government. And there’s of course, more here as well. The US Navy sprayed its own sailors with biological weaponized mist back in the 1950s and watched them get sick and die. I saw it on 60 Minutes including a letter that the show read a week later saying that the sailors’ families shouldn’t seek any compensatory damages because they sailors were doing their duty to fight the evil commies by giving up their own lives.

By their own government’s hand.

Only in America, so it seems.

But you KNOW most ‘Murkans haven’t a clue about any of this and would REFUSE to believe it no matter what evidence was shown to them, so great is the conditioning that goes on in our society. So it will be relatively easy for the media and the right to paint Wright as some kind of mad America-hater who wants to eat your children rather than look at some of the underlying and historical reasons for Rev. Wright’s statements.

I have to say that this white guy was pumping his fist in jubilation at Rev. Wright’s performance this morning. It was so refreshing to hear a man speak the truth and do so without equivocation or apology - talk about speaking to truth to power/Daniel in the lion’s den! But it was with sadness as well since I know full well the long knives that will be out for Rev. Wright because of these performances.

Will it tank Obama seems to be the ancillary question on everyone’s lips. Quite possibly. But you can’t fault the rev for that. I believe him when he says he’ll be the dog on Obama’s ankle after Nov. 5 as well as before. And it seems to come from a genuinely love of his people AND his country as well. After all Wright served six years in the US military.

But of course, HIS service will be discounted as was John Kerry’s. And of COURSE McCain’s very spotty service record is being presented as “war hero” caliber, clean of all blemishes. When I was in the Army, I was taught that being a POW was nothing to brag on later - it was the duty of every US POW to escape. There’s some spottiness in his record to be sure. But that’s OK - he’s on the ‘right’ side. Of the power elite that is.

So only time will tell if both Rev. Wright and Obama will weather the storm. For the sake of our country, I hope they do.