Before I get into the subject of the non-stop assault on Barack Obama via his Church affiliation I want to say that I am in no way an Obama supporter. My wife told me of a video comparing the Obama campaign to the Seinfeld episode where they came up with the idea of a show about nothing. This was then fused with the Obama campaign's success, a campaign about nothing, just the vacuous phrase "Change we can believe in!" I of course am a Ron Paul supporter and will be voting third party in November (Libertarian or Constitutionalist). This is all by way of preface.That said, this election more than any other has woke me up to the sheer power and influence of the news propagandists in our voting process. The fall of Guilliani from frontrunner status followed by the resurrection of McCain seemingly out of the grave of irrelevancy, the predicted Obama win in NH and the defeat at the hands of Clinton allegedly because she cried. Of course there was the constant sidelining of Ron Paul as a non-contender from day one.
In short the media has more control over the electorate than many people give them credit, it is they who announce what the "latest polls show", it is they who decide who the "serious candidates" and "front runners" are, thus deciding who we are to choose between. It truly is lamentable to see how effective this is when almost everyone I talk with throws out the cliches of "Ron Paul?! Go ahead throw your vote away!" or "You gotta choose the lesser of the two evils..."
My point above is to show how influential all of this nonsense really is, if front runners are announced you must abide by the above cliches and vote for one of the "winners". So the media has a massive degree of sway and ability to manipulate the electoral process by raising candidates up and bringing others down. Moving now to the Obama pastor situation that has been incessantly bantered about by the media pundits for over a week now.
The Meat of the Jeremiah Wright Scandal:
I am not of the secularist opinion that a politicians religion doesn't matter, in a lot of ways it should be an indicator of the person's character. However, we also know that politicians feign religiosity to gain acceptance, kind of like holding babies for photo ops only in this case it's baby Jesus.
In regards to Obama's church attendance a recent fervor has erupted due to allegedly racist comments made by Wright from the pulpit. The Neo-Cons have not stopped talking about this on the radio and tv playing clips of "racist" statements, bringing up Wright's friendship with Louis Farrakhan and Obama's relationship with a former member of the Weatherman Underground group. In short, the sharks have smelled blood and there is now a frenzy.Just what DID pastor Wright say that has Sean Hannity and company so ruffled? Here are some of the more shocking quotes (taken from an AP report):
(Speaking on Sept 11):
"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Here we see Wright call out our governments own nasty doings and support of terror and how our evils have come home to roost via people hating the U.S. I of course would go further than Wright so my simple question is what's the big deal here? Oh I forgot, we're not supposed to ask WHY the third world hates America we are just supposed to bomb them for hating us...that's the patriotic thing to do after all.
(Probably the most played quote):
"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. 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."
I admit this is strong language, we need to THINK about it and ask questions rather than simply REACTING to it. The question we need to ask is "Why is he talking like this?" Well, he lists some of the reasons, the drug trade which our own government is involved allowing (do your homework and you will see this is true), the racist prison system which can have people (mostly Black) locked up for 3 strikes of non-violent crimes. After all it is mostly impoverished blacks who are on the street pushing the drugs the CIA has brought into the country.
These seem like pretty good reasons to think God's curse would be called for on this country, and he is probably right. I do disagree with calling it down like Wright does, this certainly is out of step with what Christ Himself taught. Christ rebuked His disciples for calling down judgement on sinners. (Luke 9:53-55)
(Another quote):
"Barack knows what it means to be a black man to be living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger."
Well, again isn't that all true? What so far has been racist about anything Wright has said? He is simply saying Hillary doesn't know what it is like to be marginalized because of her race (perhaps gender), Barack does. (The above quotes were from an Associated Press release on Mar 18, you can see the article here)
Now on Rush Limbaugh's web page we see an article titled "Obama's double life exposed: His racist Hatemonger pastor". Now I am not here to defend Jeremiah Wright, I am sure I would actually disagree with him on most of his theological positions, for instance this black Jesus nonsense. Jesus was Jewish, He doesn't need to be black to be acceptable to blacks, if you think that Christ needs to be black or else Christianity is "White mans religion" you're elevating your race above Christ and His Word. Is Wright guilty of that? Probably.
My Assesment of This Boondoggle:
To tie this together what I see in this whole situation is a whole lot of silliness at best and malicious slander intended to minipulate the electorate at worst. It is silly to say that when someone looks at our own government as the cause of hatred of America that person is unpatriotic and hateful. That is just plain stupid, and antithetical to free thought. However, that is what we get in the media.
This is the new investigative journalism at it's best, say good bye to reporters breaking stories like Watergate, say hello to the era of News slathered in big breasted celebrity gossip and political assassination with spurious investigation. In this era candidates are made and destroyed by the media and corporate ties.Even now "recent polls" say Hillary Clinton is now the front runner due to all of these revelations about Obama's filthy secretive racist Satanic pact making past. After all that's what this is really about, the media folk are the king makers. Until we realize this we will continue to play in their sand box by their rules with all of this "Left" vs. "Right", "Liberal" vs. "Conservative", "Democrat" vs. "Republican" game. This is all a charade of choice, the reality is that we have no choice, they will have decided for us.
A clear example is how the Manchurian John McCain came out of absolutely nowhere to get the nomination, early in the election McCain's candidacy was treated in similar obscureness as that of Ron Paul. This changed after Iowa, and almost overnight McCain (not Huckabee who won Iowa) was anointed "frontrunner".
These are the kingmakers at work, and right now Obama is the latest victim of their onslaught of rubber knives and Nerf bullet scandal charges. We see it time and time again, as with the "Dean scream" (The video can be seen here, ) keep in mind that little "Byeah!" at the end of Dean's speech is what allegedly cost him the nomination and brought Howard Dean's campaign to the dust paving the way for skull and bonesmen John Kerry to be the 2004 Democratic candidate. We need to see through the spin and understand where they are trying to shift our opinions to and ask why?
Will this rubbish about Obama's pastor cost him the nomination? Perhaps. It is difficult to say, if Howard Dean can be deemed unelectable because of a girlish shriek then any drummed up assault can result in the toppling of those the media wishes to sideline. Any statement on race can be spun as racist, any statement on sex can be spun as sexist, and any statement criticising the war or government intervention overseas can bee spun to be "anti-American" hate speech.
This is the new "free press" in America, it is nothing short of Soviet style propaganda. What is truly lamentable is the fact that most people don't know the difference between propaganda and reporting. There is however still a glimmer of hope and truly free press in America and that is why I thank God for the Internet.
UPDATE:
I recieved in the comment thread a link to a video of one of the controversial messages, this video gives better context to Wright's statements. Not that I think his statements were that bad to begin with but still, it is good to see the broader scope of what he is talking about rather than isolated sentences.
The video can be seen here.
