Thank God for Media Matters! In their March 14 newsletter, they point out how ABC has aired controversial statements made by Barack Obama's pastor, William Wright, in his sermons, but has yet to air comments made by John McCain endorser, San Antonio-based evangelist John Hagee. In a September 2006 interview with NPR's Terry Gross regarding New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and a supposed Gay Pride parade that was to have been held the day Katrina struck, he said:

I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades...And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

I had not even heard about Hagee's comments. While William Wright should be condemned for what he has said in his sermons, the same should apply to John Hagee as well.

Obama's former pastor's name is Jeremiah Wright, not William. Anyway, I don't get John Hagee lately. Years ago, when I heard his sermons on TV and at MegaFest, I don't remember him saying a lot of these awful things he's saying now. I remember back in 2002 when he said on TV, "If you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on." I wrote that down, and that statement uplifted me when I felt hopeless. Fast forward to a few months ago, and he pretty much said that multiculturalism was an abomination. I had to do a double take. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, what culture does he think everyone in the world should assimilate to? From that moment on, I didn't want to hear anything else he had to say.

I'm not sure McCain even acknowledges him, honestly. I don't seriously call him a Man of God anymore. All those old TBN (warning: Flash-y) preachers have pretty much lost contact with Planet Earth.

McCain sought Hagee's support. Hagee said so himself.

Yes, but does McCain has the same mentor relationship with Hagee as Obama has with Wright? Just sayin'...

Jeff,

Obviously you haven't caught up on the TRUE STORY around Rev Wright's oft "mis-quoted" chickens coming home to roost speech.

Have you seen the entire context of Rev Wright's sermon and SEPARATE statement regarding "chicken's coming home to roost"

Wright was quoting Ambassadoe Peck, a white male US ambassador who had been interviewed on FOX after 911. Ambassador Peck, in turn, was in fact quoting Malcolm X, the originator of the "roosting chicken" reference.

So given the full context of Rev Wrights comments, Obama could have defended the statements as being taken "out" of context. But Obama didn't. And that shows his brillance.

Had Obama taken the "out of context" approach, Obama would have immediately and forever been branded as a racist just like Farakan was with F's "Jusiasm is a gutter religion" statement. Farakan's statement was taken out of context as well. What F actually said that the the way the Israeli Zionists were using Judiasm to promote the killing of innocent Palestianians meant the Israeli government was practicing "Judiasm as a gutter religion" .

Farakan has never been able to shed this mantle, no matter how many times he appeared on Donahue and 60 Minutes, etc. The mantle has stayed with him to this day.

Obama in his political brillance, saw the trap, evaded the trap and turned the trap into a platform to show how different a person (politician?) he truly is.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

No, I haven't listened to the entire speech CO, admittedly. But I didn't have to before I could comment on whether McCain's relationship and endorsement by Hagee was comparable to the Obama/Wright story.

I also haven't read or listened to ever speech Hagee has made in their entirety either for "context", but I'm going by reports that he has made controversial and inflammatory remarks that shouldn't be endorsed or supported by a presidential candidate.

Not even the same. Barack Obama attended Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and voluntarily listened to that hateful speech. McCain was endorsed by a guy who claims McCain sought his support. Huge difference.

Not even the same. Barack Obama attended Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and voluntarily listened to that hateful speech. McCain was endorsed by a guy who claims McCain sought his support. Huge difference.

I can agree there's a difference.

But which is worse? Seeking the endorsement of someone you don't know and don't vet? Or not seeking the endorsement of -- but also not throwing under a bus -- your former pastor, with whom you occasionally disagreed, perhaps vigorously, but still respected? McCain sought Hagee's endorsement. Is that because he didn't know the guy was anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-gay?

This is all very instructive. Everyone remember that you can lash out at pretty much anyone from the pulpit as long as they aren't the dominant culture. Then you're "hateful."

Watch that link above. You don't have to agree with it, but watch it. The whole thing.

I've voluntarily listened to a lot of hateful speech in my date. I used to hear all sorts of bigoted, hate spewing in my church in Neshoba County, back in the day. Since then, I've sought out "hateful" speech, former Klansmen, white supremacists, race-baiting political candidates, anti-white speakers ... because I want to understand them, and do my itty-bitty part to help bring people together.

It's truly absurd to lambaste Obama for listening to his preacher say some things he disagreed with, even as he was using those lessons to build his own sermon of hope and unity. Truly, truly. This is the type of anti-intellectual, political garbage that keeps this country divided. With due respect.

Republicans for years, or at least since they became the old Dixiecrats, have sought bigots to help them get votes, pure and simple. George Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, for God's sake. Funny, FatHarry, I've never seen you post outrage about that recent, disgusting habit of the Republican Party -- the one they publicly admitted and apologized to the NAACP for a couple years back.

Why the double standard?

And, yes, iTodd, don't anyone dare start picking on white people. We can pick, pick, pick, lie and trash other people all we want, but we are NOT going to take criticism of our race. What kind of white pride would that display?

I'm so sick of this sh!t and small mindedness that I could scream.

What do you all think of this Salon article?

Excerpt:

Yes, Wright was angry, shrill and one-sided. But America would have been better off if his uncomfortable sermon had echoed through every church in the country after 9/11, instead of the patriotic, ahistorical pablum that did.

What's strange, and depressing, is that all this has happened before -- and we've learned nothing. In the days after 9/11, the nation whipped itself up into an ecstasy of moral sanctimony. Among the few who dared to resist the groupthink was Susan Sontag, who in a brief New Yorker piece wrote, "The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgement that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed super-power, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?"

Sontag was saying the same things Wright did. Like him, she was instantly pilloried. She was called a traitor, an enemy of the state, an appeaser, a supporter of Osama bin Laden. But she was right. ....

In "The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice," the culture critic Greil Marcus looks at the dark visions articulated and made manifest by John Winthrop, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. Like Wright, these three figures did more than demand that America live up to its ideals. Whether in their rhetoric or by the example of their lives, they held a prophetic sword over it.

In 1630, Winthrop delivered a sermon to his fellow members of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The line that has gone down in history, oft cited by Ronald Reagan, is "wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill." But Reagan, eager to present America as perfect, omitted the passage that followed. Winthrop warned that if the community of Puritans dealt falsely with their God, they would be cursed "till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are goeing." Marcus describes this terrible image as "the replacement of God by a demon who, as citizens went about their work or leisure, would suddenly devour them."

In his Second Inaugural Address, delivered near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued an equally terrifying warning -- one also largely erased from the national memory. "Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away," Lincoln said. But then he added, "Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'" Of this horrific vision, Marcus comments that it is "a call for a reenactment, on a national scale, of an Old Testament sacrifice."

Finally, there is Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, delivered in 1963 in Washington. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," King thundered. Time has smoothed and sentimentalized King's soaring rhetoric; the sheer force of his language has allowed us to convince ourselves that his words came true. But as Marcus points out, they have still not come true -- a fact that makes his great speech both inspiring and unbearably painful.

I am not comparing Jeremiah Wright to these towering figures. My point is that his angry claims that his nation has betrayed its promises of racial equality and a just foreign policy are part of a long and honorable prophetic tradition. It was not critics like Wright who got us into the bloody mess we're in today. That honor belongs to the flag-wavers, the patriots -- "the real Americans."

Fat Harry, not picking on you but, I am curious to know what hateful speech has Obama been listening to for 20 years? Does listening to Rev. Wright preach about God count as hateful speech? What about helping others whom are less fortunate in the Black Community? What about preaching self-help? His speeches may not be Politically Correct (Oh what irony, seeing that conservatives use that word too much) but the ones that have been played over and over are not "Hate" speeches.

If you haven't been in his church for the past 20 years, how can you know what hateful things he preaches?

Just asking...

This conversation about karma, repricutions is for societal behavior is one that every religious community should have-constantly. It's one that many had immediately following 9/11.


Just like the Bible anything can be taken out of context and used to justify and crucify. I don't agree with everything Jeremiah Wright says BUT I've actually read and listened to this sermon. Read and listen to this sermon for yourself. Don't let Fox edit together something for your entertainment and outrage.

After a long illness, I'll start attending a friend's church soon. He's far more conservative than I am. I can guarantee that he'll say something at least once a month that I don't agree with. I can guarantee that I say something at least once a day that he doesn't agree with.

What cannot be disputed is his deep regard for his fellow man, his immense integrity and his belief that God loves us all. This comes from nearly a decade of friendship. Barack Obama has 21 years. Perhaps, just perhaps, Barack Obama knows Jermiah Wright better than any of us ever will.

Fat Harry, not picking on you but, I am curious to know what hateful speech has Obama been listening to for 20 years? Does listening to Rev. Wright preach about God count as hateful speech? What about helping others whom are less fortunate in the Black Community? What about preaching self-help? His speeches may not be Politically Correct (Oh what irony, seeing that conservatives use that word too much) but the ones that have been played over and over are not "Hate" speeches.

If you haven't been in his church for the past 20 years, how can you know what hateful things he preaches?

Just asking...

Where there is smoke, there is fire. I don't need to attend his church for 20 years; others have already done the research about the views espoused by Rev. Wright. I have neither the time nor inclination to provide cites where others have done the research. Start with the Salon.com article listed above and then google "Rev. Wright".

Donna, your anecdotes about life in Neshoba County are nice, but they lose their relevance to us youngsters. Our churches don't spew hatred (at least none of the churches I've attended) and neither do our schools. I can't stand Bob Jones University and I don't like that Bush or others spoke at it. However, a speaking engagement is a far cry from 20 years in the pew.

FatHarry, I'm glad my church stories don't have relevance to you because you apparently have attended integrated churches and schools over the years that have taught you a lot about institutional racism and why black people might have been frustrated (haven't you?). But I work with many young people who are very frustrated at both what they see, and don't see, in their churches and schools. For too many young, white people, you can sum it up in one phrase: black people. For too many young people of various colors: diversity. unity. conversation. information.

The tone of your posts, frankly, is very different from most people I know under 30. That is fine, but it doesn't make your beliefs and experiences any more relevant than anyone else's. With respect.

However, a speaking engagement is a far cry from 20 years in the pew.

Huh? Sure it is. Twenty years in the pew is complex, bringing out many words of love, pain, frustration, even mistakes—in front of people who are learning from you, both what to think and what to think differently. (Kind of like the best teachers.) Seeking out a speaking engagement in front of a bunch of bigots is a ploy for the racist vote, pure and simple.

Interesting that you're bothered less by the second and don't seem to think it deserves any outrage from you.

What about stuff Bush was taught by his religious leaders over the years? What about Barbour et al. pandering to the Council of Conservative Citizens? What about Barbour's role in the national use of the southern strategy? The GOP may have apologized for it, after he was gone, but he never has to my knowledge.

Not relevant, either? Why—because you don't want it to be?

If there is any message that needs to start hitting home, it's that it's no longer up to white guys to tell the rest of us what is, and is not, "relevant" any longer. You can make your case, but it neeeds to be stronger than the one you've built here if you're going to convince people that what you consider relevant is based on anything more than personal comfort levels.

Oh, and if you've missed the point that the parents of many of Mississippi's Gen X and Y went to churches like mine, and either rejected or absorbed the lessons and then taught them to their kids, then you're being a bit obtuse, intentionally or not. History matters, especially history so raw and recent that it might have affected what youwere or were not taught in your own household, school and place of worship.

[i]I have neither the time nor inclination to provide cites where others have done the research. Start with the Salon.com article listed above and then google "Rev. Wright".[/]

You want to engage in the debate but you don't want to do work. That's paramount to saying, "I don't have to read the Bible because someone else has done that already."

Let me put a personal perspective on this:

My half-white grandmother to this day doesn't trust white people that she doesn't know. She is in her late 80's. She has been called coon, n*****, mongrel, etc... She couldn't vote until later on in life and watched my grandfather in his 50's call a young kid in his teens, Sir because he had to. She watched the Klan come after her brother-in-law and the sheriff didn't give a damn. She watched as they searched for Emmitt Till and wondered what kind of monsters could do that to a child and and worried if her own kids might suffer a similar fate. She watched as my grandfather could never get out of debt, because he always owed the plantation owner for something.

To top if off, she wasn't the product of love if you know what I mean. Her biological father basically did what any white man during that time could do and nothing would be done about it. He had nothing to do with her until his death bed. All of a sudden he want's to get right with God. Well he didn't get a chance to with my grandmother.

Am I throwing my grandmother under the bus or am I telling her life experience? She doesn't preach to a choir, but in a way she does. She's isn't Rev. Wright, but her frustrations are almost the same.

I am very fortunate to not have experienced those things but my grandmother as well as other relatives always tell us younger kids about how it was and how some things have not changed as much as we would like to think. They always, tell me not to forget where I come from. Unfortunately, that includes the bad as well as the good things about it.

Make no mistake, this country has let some of it citizens down. White people were the ones whom provided a lot of heartache for my grandmother and others in my family in addition to other black people up until maybe 25 or 30 years ago. Talking or preaching about your grievances or past injustice doesn't make you a traitor or a racist.

There's no place like the JFP to have these types of discussions.

"If you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."

LW, I'm pretty sure that is a quote is from someone else. I've seen it attributed to both FDR and Thomas Jefferson. So, it wasn't Hagee's statement. Its quite possible he's an a$$.

Thanks, Lori. I Googled it and I saw Jefferson and Roosevelt listed. I also found another quote I can look to when I'm stressed out or something:

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill

Fat Harry wrote: Barack Obama attended Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and voluntarily listened to that hateful speech.

Obama has produced documentation that he was not present when the snippets of sermon's posted on the Internet were given. Those such as fat harry clearly are interested in vilification, tarring and feathering than in the truth.

From Wikipedia:

"Martin E. Marty, a (white male) emeritus professor of religious history and holder of seventy-five honorary doctorates, defended Wright by focusing on his church and explaining, "For Trinity, being 'unashamedly black' does not mean being 'anti-white.' Think of the concept of 'unashamedly': tucked into it is the word 'shame.' Wright and his fellow leaders have diagnosed 'shame, 'being shamed,' and 'being ashamed' as debilitating legacies of slavery and segregation in society and church." Marty went on to criticize the "incomprehension and naiveté of some reporters who lack background in the civil rights and African-American movements of several decades ago".[28]

Marty additionally explains that Wright's preaching style is at times similar to the style of the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Micah, who Marty says did, in fact, call down curses upon their country for committing injustices. Marty further explains that Wright's style is similar to the jeremiad in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, while noting that just as the messages of the Old Testament prophets were ultimately about hope, so have been Wright's. Marty also asserts that Trinity's "members and pastor are, in their own term, 'Africentric', and that this should not be more offensive than that synagogues should be 'Judeo-centric' or that Chicago's Irish parishes be 'Celtic-centric'."

Rev. Marty (a white male) highly esteemed religious figure wrote in the New York Times that he attended Trinity on many occasions and never felt uncomfortable or unwelcome! The "hate speech" tag that the right wingnuts are trying to put on Rev. Wright is outrageous.

Marty additionally explains that Wright's preaching style is at times similar to the style of the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Micah, who Marty says did, in fact, call down curses upon their country for committing injustices.

Also, John the Baptist is a New Testament example of this type of preaching style, although he talked to a specific group of people instead of a whole nation:

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

My guess is that he probably said a lot worse since he was eventually beheaded.

This is a good article on the history of bipartisan/multi-racial religious cusses on Americans:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080407/scheer

I didn't want to hijack this thread, so I created a blog entry about a letter Rev. Wright wrote to a New York Times writer.

Thanks for the link, Whitley. Here's a notable part:

I know what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would say, were he alive today, for it would be consistent with his denunciation of the Vietnam War in a sermon at New York's Riverside Church a year before his assassination. Recounting his difficulty in spreading the message of nonviolence and personal responsibility to the very ghetto youths that the Rev. Wright has worked with for four decades, King stated, "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."

King delivered that speech the year Wright ended his six years of service in the US Marine Corps and Navy, for which he received three commendations from President Lyndon Johnson, whom King was confronting. No doubt Wright was influenced by King's oratory decrying "the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens...in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor." And neither could Wright.

To Lady Havoc, who doesn't think McCain will visit Mississippi:

(From today's C/L): Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Mississippi ties are the reason he'll be in the state Monday meeting with supporters and asking for votes in the November general election.

One visit. I'm willing to admit that my guess was wrong: however, hopefully it's too little, too late.