When what's good gets ya

Barack Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ... here in Raleigh that congregation has been on the front lines for as long as I've lived here to oppose war, oppose the exploitation and demonization of the poor, fight racism, xenophobia, sexism, ands homophobia, and provide the core cadre for the region's Peace Action.

Reverend Doctor Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite -- a Church of Christ minister and the President of the Chicago Theological Seminary in Obama's home state -- is a fierce social activist.

Obama's pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- one of the most respected Black pastors in the country -- is not as 'measured' in his pronouncements as a politician. He believes in the Christian social gospel and its demand for speaking truth to power:

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

FULL ARTICLE

Oh well... there goes. The patriot-baiting opportunity this presents is, of course, irrresistible, even though Obama is already playing Peter with his pastor.

Luke 22:34 - And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.

Here is the proverbial pachyderm of US politics, and an inconvenient one for the programmatic left who will cheer on Reverend Wright -- as I am, enthusiastically. The left has no popular base in US politics. The taboos associated with Dr. Wright's words are so powerfully entrenched in the American psyche (for now) that they are, for all practical purposes, impregnable.

We've got no game in elections, except as provocateurs... which is why we should seek no more or less than to provoke.

Our work is still cut out for us in unmasking the powers. We are not yet prepared to engage them, except by our living examples.

Comments

[hhkeller]

01:59 PM on 03/14/2008

Obama is fake. He attacks Geraldine Ferraro who has given the country 50 years of public serivce.
Obama says nothing about the pastor who foments hate and real devisivene­ss.
Obama's words are empty rhetoric. Yelling racist in the theatre is not Presidenti­al.
He needs to lose this election in order to grow up.
He also needs some time in the Senate ( which he should have done in the first place) learing that difficult choices and votes dont make for good one liners.

[megan1212]

03:19 PM on 03/14/2008

Oh please! I learned a few years ago that the Bishop that confirmed me in 7th grade was a pedophile and so was another priest at the Church I attended for 25 years. So does that make ME responsibl­e for the priest's action. Do I have to renounce the Catholic Church because of the sex scandal? I don't remember anyone asking Guiliani about the New York priest who were arrested and convicted of child molestatio­n. BTW, where do John McCain and Hillary Clinton worship? Are they atheist? What did their preachers or ministers say five years ago which might be relevant to their campaign?
This whole thing is a bogus attempt to get Obama out of the race. OBAMA does not have to answer for his pastor any more than a CATHOLIC has to answer for pedofile priest. IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT REV. WRIGHT SAID THEN TAKE IT UP WITH REV. WRIGHT.

[FANDRAL72]

01:57 PM on 03/14/2008

A brief but brilliant analysis. The rabidly anti-catho­lic pastoral mirror image of McCain ( a wing nut whose name escapes me) ruffles so few republican feathers that denunciati­on is hardly worth the trouble. This is also about how the Clinton's will use Rev. Wright as a wedge to seperate Obama from the progressiv­es on one side, and the vacuous undecideds on the other.
The American people have not connected the dots, and probably never will.
I am a 54 year old white man who has connected the dots. The CIA has run drugs into black neighbor hoods since the end of WWII, and the outrageous­ly profitable privatizat­ion of prisons has dovetailed neatly into mandatory sentencing­. America has become a gulag. Everything Rev Wright has said is factual.

[beebop]

11:13 AM on 03/14/2008

Look. Geraldine Ferraro was gone in 60 seconds. Obama sends out a surrogate who says, no, we don't always agree with Reverend Wright. Subject closed. Subject closed? Uh ... really?

[Clinton]

10:20 AM on 03/14/2008

Fierce social activism is what we need. We don't need to be afraid.

[cherrycola]

10:17 AM on 03/14/2008

The fact that there are black churches and white churches points to some racial divisions in this predominan­tly Christian country, doesn't it?

[Clinton]

10:27 AM on 03/14/2008

It is Christian according to the ads, but when you look under the hood it's a mutant breed of narcissism­. The Christiani­ty is a masquerade for the most part.

[Violist]

10:30 AM on 03/14/2008

But you have to understand the context out of which black churches were created. The churches were survival both spiritual and otherwise of blacks in this country. White churches wouldn't take blacks. Remember, Jim Crow, segregatio­n? That's why there are black churches. It's the only place where blacks could worship and be safe (and even that was not always the case-hello Birmingham 1963, 4 little girls killed). It was a tool to build and uplift the black community in times where society were hellbent on keeping blacks down. So yes it does point to some racial division but you have to remember the context out of which that division was created.

[hinnis]

10:38 AM on 03/14/2008

I don't know that anyone has a problem with black churches. I'm sure that for the most part, they are very beneficial to the community. The problem is that Rev. Wright, Obama's "mentor and spiritual adviser" for 20 years, has been disseminat­ing racist and anti-Ameri­can rhetoric to his listeners in the guise of Christiani­ty. And, more importantl­y, Obama has chosen not only to listen to him for 20 years, but to designate him as his mentor and spiritual adviser. I don't need to mention again what would happen to Hillary's chances in this or any election if she had such an adviser.

[YellerDawg]

10:15 AM on 03/14/2008

"The taboos associated with Dr. Wright's words are so powerfully entrenched in the American psyche (for now) that they are, for all practical purposes, impregnabl­e."

While I am as liberal as it is possible to be, I cringe at statements like those of the minister and Michelle's unfortunat­e faux pas, as well. That taboo is powerfully entrenched in me, too. Any politician who doesn't recognize that public statements such as these are kryptonite is doomed to failure.

[NuttyProf]

09:34 AM on 03/14/2008

It's pretty clear that most Americans are ignorant about what goes on in black churches these days, any more than they know what goes on in Mormon churches. This is not new, folks.

[hinnis]

09:12 AM on 03/14/2008

Mr. Goff is making the same mistake made by many members of the UCC church, and that is comparing their congregati­on to that of Obama's. I live down the street from a UCC church, and it is very much like any other church I've been to. Obama's church it far different. According to the church’s website, their members are “unashamed­ly Black and unashamedl­y Christian,­” and swear allegiance to the mother continent, Africa. Obama’s church gave the racist and Jew-hating Farrakhan a “lifetime achievemen­t award” last November. Rev. Wright, who Obama calls his "mentor and spiritual adviser," teaches Black Theology, and thinks about everything pretty much in terms of black versus white. He called 9/11, for example, a “wake-up call to white people.” Commenting on the recent murder of Natalie Holloway, he decried the press coverage by stating that “one 18 year-old white girl from Alabama gets drunk on a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country, and that stays in the news for months.” Rev. Wright cites James Cone as his theologica­l inspiratio­n, who is another proponent of Black Theology. Here are just a couple of James Cone's quotes: (1) To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people. (2) While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. (3) Theologica­lly, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man the devil. *** The recent focus on the racist and anti-Ameri­can pronouncem­ents of Obama's pastor are not reflective on the UCC as a whole, but are related only to Obama's Trinity United Church. I am gratified that the mainstream media has finally picked up on this very important story. I only hope it is not too late in the nomination process.

[Invisibelle]

09:30 AM on 03/14/2008

I agree, I read about his church on its own website, but I had no idea this was what was being preached there. For Obama to go there for 20 years and have his children listen to their pastor curse in church and rant on Christmas Day, and have this vile man as his mentor, shows me his judgment is very very bad. This sounds like Farakhan at his worst and it's not the kind of church that anybody running for president should be associated with. Bye bye red states.

[Clinton]

10:24 AM on 03/14/2008

HRC is far worse than anyone attending a black church.

The cursing and ranting are appropriat­e to a group that was once held in bondage by the whites (half of them white women) in this country and who continue to live a semi-servi­le life amidst white racism in America.

[LeftLeaner]

12:31 PM on 03/14/2008

You bring up an interestin­g point, which I had forgotton about.

When Farakhan had endorsed Obama, and Obama rejected AND renounced him I thought nothing further about it, but, now, with these new HATE VIDEOS in his pastor's very own words, uttering vile and hateful words towards AMERICA, I'm starting to become a bit concerned about our candidate.

This is very troubling news, and makes me wonder who the REAL OBAMA is.

T

[LeeScho]

11:02 AM on 03/14/2008

Robert Byrd can stand in the well of the Unied States Senate at the height of the Civil Rights movement and denounce Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in terms that would comparably make Louis Farrakhan look like a saint, but today Hillary Clinton celebrates and reveres him as the grand old man of the senate. Because of the rightful and strong allegiance Jewish Americans have to their Motherland­, AIPAC holds nearly every politician in this country hostage to the genocide and apartheid Israe practices against the Palestinia­ns. But God forbid that an African American should show such to Africa. Are the American born members of the Sons of Italy equally as traitorous and unpatrioti­c? Blacks hating whites is not racism, it is self-defen­se. Tell me again, who were the original aggressors in that relationsh­ip? When Michelle Obama stated that for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of her country, that is a uniquely and almost universall­y held sentiment among Black Americans. Not all Americans have had the same experience here.

Rev. Wright's reference to Natalie Holloway was an indictment of a news media that, fails to even mention the many Black women that go missing every year in this country.

Black people were not surprised by September Eleventh. What arrogance and conceit it is for America to think that it can, for decades going on centuries, treat non-Europe­an cultures like its outhouse and not have the eventual overwhelmi­ng stench of its defecation make its way back into the main house? It's like white people thinking for centuries that their Black slaves, cooks and domestics loved them, when in fact the hatred of these subdued people was mitigated only by their Christian faith.

Your attempt to declare that our only validity as an American is that we all be painted with the same brush of unquestion­ing and non-cirtic­al support for whatever America says and does is racist and pathetic. There is not enough whitewash in all the world to cover the dark and dirty areas of the American facade that so many of us have experience­d.

[YellerDawg]

11:33 AM on 03/14/2008

Without even arguing the truthiness of your arguments, do you think this kind of language will get Obama elected president?

[hinnis]

11:41 AM on 03/14/2008

Robert Byrd is not running for President, and if he were, I would not vote for him. Regarding the rest of your post, I presume that you agree with the racist and anti-Ameri­can positions of Rev. Wright, and as an American, you have that right. Also, as an American I have the right to disagree with you without being called a racist. My post consisted primarily of quotes by Rev. Wright and his mentor, James Cone. If you have a problem with those quotes you should take it up with them. Finally, hauling out the race card whenever someone dares to criticize Obama or any of his associates is a blatant attempt to chill free speech; and that fact is becoming increasing­ly clear to millions of Americans.