Is there a chance Wright is right? (By David Sirota)

[Leo 9]

Is there a chance Wright is right?

By David Sirota

Syndicated Columnist

snip

It is polite pinstriped prejudice shrouding bigotry in feigned outrage against extremism — the operative word being "feigned." After all, John McCain solicited the endorsement of John Hagee — the pastor who called the Catholic Church "a great whore." Similarly, according to Mother Jones magazine, Hillary Rodham Clinton belongs to the "Fellowship" — a secretive group "dedicated to 'spiritual war' on behalf of Christ." She is also friendly with Billy Graham, the reverend caught on tape spewing anti-Semitism. But while Wright's supposed "extremism" blankets the news, McCain's and Clinton's relationships with real extremists receive scant attention.

Why is it "controversial" for one pastor to address the black community, racism and blowback, but OK for another pastor to slander an entire religion? Why is it news that one candidate knows a sometimes-impolitic clergyman, but not news that his opponent associates with an anti-Semite? Does the double standard prove the dominant culture despises a black man confronting taboos, but accepts whites spewing hate? Does the very reaction to Wright show he's right about racism?

Clinton seems to think so. Her aides have been calling the states they believe Obama will lose their political "firewall." That's campaign-speak for "race wall" — one built with bricks like Pennsylvania and Indiana. These aren't the near-purely white states where racial politics is often muted (and Obama won). They are the slightly diverse states where racial politics simmers and where the black vote is too small to offset a motivated racist vote. This race wall is now being fortified.

ABC News reports that Clinton's campaign is "pushing the Wright story" ahead of the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. The crass tactic is designed to motivate the racist vote by reminding whites of Obama's connection to the African-American community. Put another way, Clinton's message has become simply: Obama Is Black.

snip

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004313756_sirota31.html

[Window]

1. K/R.

:kick:

[AtomicKitten]

2. Damn skippy he's right.

[BeyondGeography]

3. "Clinton's message has become simply: Obama Is Black."

There's more than a little truth to that.

[azmouse]

4. And as Jonathan Alter said in Newsweek:

"Clinton was disappointed that the feeding frenzy over Obama's relationship with the Rev Jeremiah Wright didn't destroy his candidacy. It's her best hope of winning the nomination..."

[Leo 9]

9. When this book comes out Clinton will be even more disappointed.

Sunday, February 3, 2008
Jeff Sharlet, The Family, 2008



"Just when we thought the Christian right was crumbling, Jeff Sharlet delivers a rude shock: One of its most powerful and cult-like core groups, the Family, has been thriving. Sharlet's book is one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read -- just don't read it alone at night!"
--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, and Dancing in the Streets

From the bookjacket:

They are the Family—fundamentalism’s avant-garde, waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the new chosen, congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a “leadership led by God,” to be won not by force but through “quiet diplomacy.” Their base is a leafy estate overlooking the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have written from inside its walls.

The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, the Family's leader declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

Sharlet’s discoveries dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not “What do fundamentalists want?” but “What have they already done?”

snip

http://jeffsharlet.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post.html

[boobooday]

5. More than a chance

That's why they won't give us the context.

[Hugabear]

6. Most of what Rev. Wright said has been repeated here on DU for years

Of course, it was okay when DUers suggested that it was our foreign policies that brought 9-11 on us. But when Obama's pastor says so, it's suddenly flamebait.

[EffieBlack]

25. True dat. Amazing, isn't it?

Nothing scarier to some people than an angry black man. Even if he's saying what they've been saying all along.

[Whisp]

7. Wright is right. There isn't much he said that most wouldn't have agreed with

back when Bush was the topic du jour of rightful distain on these boards.

but now that the queen from the opposition is in trouble, the same vile bush-like talking points have become acceptable to the deprived of reason and anything goes that is nasty and off base.

[butterfly77]

8. And it has gotten worse..

over the past month..

[noel711]

10. Damn right WRight's right!

This controversy is simply obfuscation....

And I'm totally bummed out because when I said the same things
from the pulpit, neither Joe Scarborough nor Chris Matthews
said a word! I was sooo disappointed! They must be sexist!

[FrenchieCat]

11. That's why the Hillary Campaign brings me to tears.......

as an African-American voter. I hardly knew them till now. How sad we are as a country if we can't tell both of the Clintons to go to hell! What better way than by electing Barack Obama, and finally, finally turning that yellow ass dingy stinky musty page of our history.

[Mimosa]

15. HRC could make anybody despair, Frenchie

FrenchieCat, had no idea you were African-American. Love your graphic.

I follow politics so much I did know what the Clintons really are (grifters, users, manipulators who play groups of citizens against each other for their ambitions and power) and I'm not really happy to have been right. During the late 80s and the 90s I watched this country being sold out. "W" is only completing what his predecessors began. And we're all the poorer, economically and spiritually.

I haven't felt optimistic that anything would ever change until Obama came along. No, he's no miracle worker. But with a President Obama we'll all have a chance. I think he cares about us all.

[quantass]

19. Hi Frenchie

You being one of the elite on DU, i admire your interesting posts and i too didnt know you were AA...I totally agree with yuo and cant wait till that day when Obama is sworn in!

[FrenchieCat]

20. I'm like Obama.......

born to a Black father and a White mother....married a Black man and have raised two beautiful African-American daughters.

This is me: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/FrenchieCat when I'm happy!

[2rth2pwr]

12. What is wrong with Obama? He calls him a crazy uncle and

repudiates the man's words. Claims he would have left the church if he wasn't retiring.

Why won't he stand up for what is right?

[jenmito]

16. There's NOTHING wrong with him. He called him an OLD uncle and said if he had heard THOSE

remarks AND he didn't apologize for them he would've left the church. Get it right.

[2rth2pwr]

21. Sadly and unsurprisingly you are incorrect. He did refer to him as a Crazy Uncle

and he said he would have left the church if Wright wasn't retiring. there is dispute about whether he meant that Wright actually apologized, but as of yet there is no

evidence that Wright has or will apologize for any of his speech.

[jenmito]

22. No I'm not. Until/unless you can show me a quote in the many transcripts available, YOU'RE wrong.

[2rth2pwr]

23. delete.

[jenmito]

27. Darn. I missed it. So I guess you ARE wrong? Thanks for the clarification!

:hi:

[2rth2pwr]

28. ...

Obama discusses Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Had the Reverend not retired...then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/28/barack-obama-on-the-view_n_93861.html

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRvpwq-szno&eurl

"Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church," the senator said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/28/obama.pastor/

Looks like Barack Obama is kicking his crazy uncle out of the basement. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/03/obama_reacts_to_controversial.html

The Democratic presidential hopeful has compared his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to an "old uncle" with whom he doesn't always agree. But with the controversial preacher's racially inflammatory remarks and sermons burning up the Internet over the past 24 hours or so, the Obama campaign had to respond with some tough love.

In a posting on Huffington Post late Friday afternoon, Obama called Wright's statements "inflammatory and appalling" and said, "Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."

[jenmito]

29. Thanks for proving me right and yourself WRONG!

:hi:

[Leo 9]

30. In her case Hillary is the crazy old uncle. (Hillary's Ties to Religious Fundamentalists)

Hillary's Ties to Religious Fundamentalists

By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted March 20, 2008.


When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, Hillary Clinton is a lot more vulnerable than Barack Obama.

There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka the Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.

The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, the Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:

snip

http://www.alternet.org/election08/80248/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5299324

[BenDavid]

13. Jeremiah 14:14..... And the L-rd said to me,

The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart.

Take take all you preachers,and bush that proclaim they have heard the voice of G-d.

[cali]

14. You need help. Seriously.

and take your religious bullshit that you're using to insinuate that Obama is the anti-Christ and shove it you know where.

[jenmito]

17. I agree.

:toast:

[Leo 9]

31. US Evangelist Gives $6 Million to Israel

US Evangelist Gives $6 Million to Israel
By BETH MARLOWE – 2 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — American evangelist John Hagee announced donations of $6 million to Israeli causes on Sunday and said that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem.

Hagee, a Christian Zionist who has been in the spotlight lately for endorsing presidential candidate John McCain and criticizing the Catholic Church, brought hundreds of backers on a solidarity trip to Israel.

Hagee and his group, Christians United for Israel, joined keynote speaker Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition Likud Party, at a rally in support of Jerusalem remaining united and under Jewish control.

"Turning part or all of Jerusalem over to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban," Hagee told an audience filled with Americans who waved Israeli flags and cheered.

snip

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ijYOZfs8tqW0uSmk2R2anDTmXWOgD8VSMA180

[quantass]

18. k&r

[hollowdweller]

24. I'm going to do all I can to make sure HC is wrong about BO's not being able to be elected.

[Rage for Order]

26. That depends...

I suggest you ask the "garlic nose Italians" if he was right. Or perhaps you could find the government scientists who engineered the AIDS virus in an attempt to wipe out blacks. Next, you could try to track down the government crack dealers who were dealing drugs to black Americans. Finally, maybe you could ask a survivor of the Bataan Death March, a resident of Nanking, or a native of the Philippines why we didn't "bat an eye" when we nuked Japan.

[ClayZ]

32. Rev. Wright is right on!

K and R