Sometimes our degraded press prefers the prediction to the event itself. I'm talking about Jeremiah Wright's interview with Bill Moyers. It aired last Friday night and to my mind was one of Bill's best interviews. Rev. Wright was talking to someone in his own metier. Moyers is also ordained, is a great speaker and cares deeply about social justice. So it was an equal interviewing an equal -- so seldom the case on television.
Bill Moyers nevertheless pushed Wright hard, raised all the questions Wright's out-of-context sound bites have aroused and played lengthy excerpts from his sermons. I was inspired. This is a pastor I'd listen to on a Sunday instead of namby-pamby Tim Russert or the various screaming clubs on network TV.
Wright seems utterly sincere to me. He strikes me as having a true spiritual calling. When he says, "America's chickens have come home to roost," I can't fault his logic. Haven't we been squandering hard earned taxpayer money on overseas adventures while we starve poor children? Haven't we been supporting dictators while prating of democracy? Haven't we been enriching profiteers at the expense of health care and education? You betcha.
A week ago I told my audience in Rome that in the last several years, I've been ashamed to be an American. A cheer went up from the amphitheater. It was such a relief, audience members later told me, to hear an American speak the truth for a change.
The Italians may have voted for Silvio Berlusconi, but they don't think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been good for America or the planet. Like most Americans, they would love to see them gone. So would Italians. Italians love American and feel pain when we slide away from the great ideals our Constitution and Bill of Rights have given the world.
Italians feel they have a stake in America. It's interesting to hear how thrilled they are by New York. When I say "sono New Yorkese" (I'm a New Yorker), they are delighted. And they also love LA and Chicago and Miami. Many Italians commute between New York and Rome, LA and Milan, Miami and Florence. They can't vote in the US but you'd never know that by how interested they are in American politics. They love our great 18th century traditions -- sometimes more than we.
So where's the discussion of Jeremiah Wright's real calling? You can't find it. Our idiotic press prefers to play orphaned excerpts and force Barack Obama to apologize for words he never spoke. What is this apology stuff? Everyone has to apologize for their pastors, their doctors, their mothers, their fathers, their churches, their social affiliations. Why? Apologies are cheap. Inspiration is hard to find.
Just because a man is inspired by his pastor doesn't mean he agrees with every word his pastor says. Duh. Even a moron knows that. But inspiration remains important. And you will never be inspired by running stuff out of context and playing gotcha.
Our press has become a sea of triviality, meanness and irrelevant chatter.
God knows inspiration is always welcome. Moyers and Wright gave us that on Friday night.
But unlike those who control our information pipelines I DO NUANCE and was able to make the distinction between some of what Wright has said and others.
But, I percieve that you did not see him before the Journalists on Monday. His was beligeranting and raving in a way that appeared purely egotistical....yet one can have compassion for the way that the terrible things he said post 9/11 superceded the apparently many ways that he helped his community.
I was Media Trained many years ago: The first thing you are taught is how what you say can be taken out of context
And having worked on the first generations of products that connect computers to each other and to the Internet I am extremely uncomfortable about the negative potential of U-Tube on our political process because it increases the potential to Practice Swiftboating, and to empower the sleaziest
such as this administration -- Whose sophisticated PR process has done so much damage.
it came to me that however interesting Rev. Wright's message and it is, he IS after all, a *Pastor*.
["Carpenter stick to thy lathe" comes to mind.]
At that podium the other day, he was hell bent on stirring up shock & derision amoungst every last one of the diverse constituencies Obama, "as a politician" (speaking for the Whole Country), is seeking to bring together so we can fix it~ despite of and maybe even, on account of ~ all our various and sundry wounds.
PS This is not in anyway to excuse the media playing the childhood game of Pass The Word:
turning
"as a politician",
into: just a politician,
into: just another politician....
Just my two cents.
Face it liberals....Wright has made some incredible statements for which he has no proof (or will not reveal the proof....which usually means there is not proof).
I think all you guys should start looking forward to a McCain presidency. Not saying I would really like that much more than you guys but he's better than either of the 2 democratic avowed socialists.
Your piece talks about all the atrocities "we" have perpetrated. The Black church I think tends to look more at what "they" have done in our name ... and speaks to the disenfranchised here who are often times as much abused by the US Govt. as the overseas victims you site.
It's different.
Good for Wright. He doesn't owe Obama anything ... and if this is how he treats his Pastor then how will it be for Black Americans if he is elected. Will they be adled uncles? Why wouldn't they just be written off as well if their issues clash with BO's ambitions?
I'm ashamed you're an American too.
No really, I agree completely. we're both really ashamed and saddened that you can be called an American. It's just a travesty really, and we both wish it weren't so.
I'm glad to find some area where we can agree so completely.
And if, as Wright has stated, you believe that HIV/AIDS was created by the Government and spread by the CIA as part of a secret racist Government plot...
Then I agree with you even more, if that is possible.
Cheers
Venise
You will know a tree by the fruit it bears.I predict that within a year this country will be on fire.Lets hope I'm wrong.
And we're all blathering about this nonsense when we should be focused on Iraq and health care and energy prices and the environment and our schools and our roads and.........
As a point of calrification, the earliest reference, that I am aware of, regards the chickens quote, was made by Malcom X in 1963. If anyone has knowledge that predates this, please join in.
This speech is sometimes called "The Chickens Come Home To Roost," because of an answer Malcolm X gave in response to a question following the speech. The question concerned the late President John Kennedy. It was Malcolm X's answer, that the Presidents death was a case of "chickens coming home to roost" -- that the violence that Kennedy had failed to stop had come back to him.
Please provide the links you've apparently found that show where Louis Farrakhan was responsible for the deaths of millions, invaded countries, imprisoned and experimented on innocent people, etc.
I would bet that Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam has done a lot more to help people (black or white) than you ever have.
Minister Farrakhan has indeed done many commendable things for the black community. As Reverend Wright said, he has saved many young black youth from lives of crime and poverty and inferior education. He has infiltrated gangs to bring black children back to school and from off the streets. He has lifted black families from the strangle-hold of hopelessness and have given them the encouragement to ressurect broken communities. Twenty years ago, he made offensive remarks about the Jewish community. He apologized, and he's been hated for these words ever since! Your contempt for Minister Farrakhan is your own, but what right do you, or does anyone have, to demand that Reverend Wright or anyone else hate him too! Based on your post, why am I not surprised that you would find Moyers' interview "a slow pitch softball affair?" If you feel that you are justified in comparing Reverend Wright to Hitler, then you've not only missed the point, but you'll never get it!