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Home  At Length Obama, Wright or Wrong
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Obama, Wright or Wrong |
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At Length
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Written by James Preston Allen
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
The mainstream media is having a heyday pillorying Barack Obama over comments made by his minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The problem is the more the media pundits attack Obama over his minister’s exercise of free speech and freedom of religious expression, the more I’m inclined to support Obama. Wright’s condemnation of America for pursuing an illegal war in Iraq or discussing race issues from the pulpit is perhaps more relevant than half of the political posturing the rest of the presidential candidates have offered thus far. Wright is right and the great American media is wrong or stupid or perhaps worse, if you believe like I do, that they do this with malevolent intent.
Case in point: last week, the New York Times, the nation’s leading daily newspaper, published one of the most shocking investigative articles to come out about the Bush administration’s gaming of public opinion—“Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.” They reported that prior to and after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon (under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense), rounded up dozens of military generals and other top officers, representing 150 different military contractors, and gave them private briefings, free trips to the war zone and Guantanamo Prison, then supplied them with talking points and sent them out to work as independent “military analysts” for the major broadcast media. These generals hiding behind the appearance of objectivity offered up Pentagon-laced opinions to blunt the ground swell of opposition to the war. You may recall the networks hiring of analysts like retired USAF Generals Barry McCaffrey and Thomas G. McInerney who echoed Pentagon talking points.
The records, which the NY Times had to sue the Pentagon to release, revealed a “symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.” Please refer to the accompanying letter from Senator John Kerry on this issue for more detail. But the issue here is that the so called Fourth Estate has been duped if not absorbed into the government propaganda machine and used as a “surrogate” for warping your perception of the war(s). It is not particularly new that our government uses propaganda when it goes to war or lies to us, but it is particularly alarming for it to be done so covertly. It should be criminal!
But outing the government lies is exactly what Reverend Wright was talking about in his sermon in which he has been repeatedly quoted out of context as saying, “God damn America.” A better context for realizing that Wright was speaking truth to power comes in the following text, which can be read in the transcript of the Bill Moyers Journal interview on the PBS website, when the minister was preaching about how America has historically failed African Americans and other minorities. His words are, “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ Naw…naw, naw. Not God bless America. God damn America … for treating us citizens less than human!”
This followed him listing the numerous times our government has lied to us from the very beginning with “all men are created equal,” but not explaining that they were only referring to “all white men” and continuing down through our history to the Vietnam War and the Bay of Tonkin resolution and the Bombing of Cambodia, Richard Nixon, the Iran Contra Drugs for Guns scheme to the very latest lies that the Bush administration used to sell us the current war in Iraq–WMDs and Saddam’s connection to al Qaeda. All he correctly cites as government lies–– all, each, and every one. But the news pundits only exclaim, “he said ‘God Damn America’ is Obama Patriotic?” Well of course he is and thank God for Jeremiah Wright for speaking his mind too.
It is far past the time that the “patriotic” shills who have been filling our airwaves with false truths, prevarications, lies and damned lies should be outed by someone who can’t be gotten to, bought off or corrupted! Hallelujah, if some churches in America are the last bastions of free speech and truth telling. I might just even join. Of course what gets lost in all of this distraction of campaign coverage is what are the real issues we the people should be focused on, like single payer national health care; stopping the war in Iraq; ending torture in American prisons both over seas and at home; and discussing war crimes indictments against Bush and Cheney.
If you want to balance out the religious debate on both sides of the political spectrum just look at the religious nut Reverend James Hagee who has endorsed Senator John McCain. He’s the one who has been preaching the Apocalypse!
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