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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[cherrycola]

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

[Clinton]

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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.