This might not interest those living outside the United States (even the otherwise broad-minded tend to get parochial living here after a while), but last night the dreaded Jeremiah Wright appeared on television, in one of the best, most adult and informative interviews I have seen for years. Only Bill Moyers is able to treat the viewing public like grown-ups.
In any event Wright, pastor of a major church in Chicago, accused of hating America, turned out to be a highly educated, well-informed, reasonable and persuasive person. His rant, "God damn America", repeated on every extremist website, blog, radio and TV station, was, it turns out, a repeat or version of something he had heard on Fox News Channel, principal mouthpiece of the ultra-nationalists! Yes, he probably added the passion typical of the African Amercan style.
But he was quoting all the time! What he was saying was that too many people gave their allegiance to governments, right or wrong, when their allegiance should be to God, and that through history governments have lied and governments have failed. He then enumerated those failures and actually did something I have never heard in America from anyone – – he gave a mini-description of the British Empire and how that had failed (the British what? Most Americans cannot even tell you which century their own civil war was in, never mind having an inkling about world history!). He went on to enumerate the cases where America has invaded and killed innocent people with the support of uncritical nationalists. He started with the treatment of the native Americans, ended with Iraq and said that killing was a sin against God (yes) and that at 9/11 chickens came home to roost (quoting the Fox interview).
You would have to be seriously irrational not to pause and think, "He has a point."
Wow! This indicates the emergence on the public scene of two clever, educated and articulate African Americans capable of running intellectual rings round most whites, challenging the myths and the dismal lack of education of the majority. Can America cope with this?
P.S Probably not! The racists are out and mobilized.
He smiled, he was calm, he didn’t get angry. He was the very antithesis of the radio shock jocks, who make a sleazy living denigrating everyone who disagrees with the. Wright is a truly good man, a real Christian and he has a sense of humor! (oh, how I wish we saw more of that!) Were I of a church-going persuasion I would attend his church, which seems to do more good in the world than all the conservative money-obsession put together.
Perhaps I’ve become a political reductionist, especially after beginning the morning with an article about McCain’s savagely stupid tax policies which compliment his destructive foreign policy ignorance.
My reductionist formula: if Rev. Wright contributes to defeating McCain, I thank him. If Rev. Wright damages the chances of anyone defeating Republicans anywhere, I’d say “No thank you.”