After his appearance on Bill Moyers Journal this week, which featured far more expansive clips of his controversial statements from the pulpit, as well as some fairly cogent explanations of those comments, it has become increasingly clear that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a Good Man with a impressive amount of wit, clarity and intelligence. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who volunteered for both the Marine Corp and the Navy during the height of Vietnam and was even cardiologist to President Johnson does not "Hate America".
Why is it so easy to question the patriotism and judgement of a Vietnam Vet and Marine like Jeremiah Wright, but not a Vet like John McCain or David Patreaus? That would be just beyond the pale to even suggest, wouldn't it?
The fact is that Reverend Jeremiah Wright has been WRONGED by the media and Swiftboated by lazy hacks cowering within ABC News.
In a series of previous diaries I've pointed out that taking "in the heat of the moment" comments such as Wright's out of context, is a completely common occurance for the media.
It's Dumpster Diving!
We've seen it before, we'll see it again - but that doesn't make it right or excusable.
What most people - including everyone in the media - ignore is the fact that many of Wright's statements were 100% Correct (Correction: Updated Link), and even some of the wildest comments - such as the U.S. Government Lies about AIDS have a solid basis in fact particularly when you look at how doggedly slow the Reagan Administration was in responding to the issue while hundreds and thousands of gay people, and eventually black people suffered and died.
A lie of omission, is still a lie.
As America remembers the life of Ronald Reagan, it must never forget his shameful abdication of leadership in the fight against AIDS. History may ultimately judge his presidency by the thousands who have and will die of AIDS.
By Feb. 1, 1983, 1,025 AIDS cases were reported, and at least 394 had died in the United States. Reagan said nothing. On April 23, 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced 4,177 reported cases in America and 1,807 deaths. In San Francisco, the health department reported more than 500 cases. Again, Reagan said nothing. That same year, 1984, the Democratic National Convention convened in San Francisco. Hoping to focus attention on the need for AIDS research, education and treatment, more than 100,000 sympathizers marched from the Castro to Moscone Center.
With each diagnosis, the pain and suffering spread across America. Everyone seemed to now know someone infected with AIDS. At a White House state dinner, first lady Nancy Reagan expressed concern for a guest showing signs of significant weight loss. On July 25, 1985, the American Hospital in Paris announced that Rock Hudson had AIDS.
It's true that Wright was wrong to say the U.S. Government "injected people" with AIDS, this was an obvious misstatement, but the truth is that what they actually did by simply standing by and doing nothing for YEARS because they thought it was just a "Gay Disease" was equally shameful, if not worse than anything Wright alleged.
Reagan was actively letting a genocide take place against Gay People. They had a deadly disease spreading and they had NO WORKABLE TREATMENT, yet they sat on their hands for years. There's no excuse for that. None.
But that wasn't the first time this had occured, there was also the Tuskeegee Experiment, where antibiotic drugs where deliberately withheld from Black men suffering from Syphlis for nearly 40 years, which is something Wright also talked about - so let us KNOW sit back and pretend that Americas hand's are perfectly clean when it comes to AIDS or supply medical treatment to black people. It simply isn't true.
But did ABC mention this? No.
(Update: It may be possible that Wright was alluding to the "Polio/Vaccine AID Virus link", but then that's what more CONTEXT would provide us, because I honestly don't know if this is what he meant or not. He only mentioned it in one sentence, in passing. The theory which was reported about ten years ago by New Yorker Magazine. (Not exactly a bastion of Black Militant Throught). There have also been stories about it in Rolling Stone. I've seem more recent reports that discount the theory claiming that the dates that the virus first appeared and the timing of the polio vaccine trials in Africa don't match up - but I'm not yet convinced either way on it. It might be completely wrong, it might not. There is a WIKI Page on it which discusses both the theory and the various arguements against it, and shows that it has been looked at seriously by real scientists! It's a still open question, and many people have tried to answer it.
Whether the theory has merit or not, the thing is when you take the reality of Tuskegee and Reagan's slow reaction into account, it's not really such a "tin-foil" theory at all compared to what we know happened in these similar instances.)
Did they mention that the person who said "America's Chicken are coming home to Roost" in response to 9/11 was Reagan's Ambassador to Iraq Edward Peck on Fox News, and that Wright was simply quoting him?
No.
Wright:I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out. You see him John? A white man he pointed out -an Ambassador! He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost!
We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. 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! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day.
We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y'all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised--
Wright's ultimate point was that we should turn away from "an eye for an eye" type of response to 9/11, that we should be wary of letting our anger over 9/11 lead us astray and seek to "Bash the head of babies" as was written in Psalm 137.
He was in fact, predicting that we would overreact to 9/11. And we did, didn't we? We invaded a country that had nothing to do with that attack, rounded up innocent people in Abu Ghraib - abused and tortured them - have contributed to the killing of possibly as many as a HALF MILLION INNOCENT IRAQIS.
We did "bashed their babies heads on the ground", with cluster bombs and daisey cutters. With Shock and Awe!
Wright: And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.
Contrary to every single member of the punditocracy, Wright was stating here that we need to turn away from bitterness in the wake of tragedy and atrocity - and turn toward God.
When Wright said "God Damn America" he didn't say that that's how Black people should feel. He didn't say it was "White America" that should be damned. He was talking very specifically about the failure of the American (and other) Governments, and that they have betrayed and failed to follow the teachings of Jesus and God when they committed various atrocities - not just against Black People, but also the Native American Tribe, and the Japanese during WWII.
And not that we should be "Bitter" about it.
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. 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. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!
Why should God "Bless" America when America tries to Act as if it were God?
And what does "Damning" mean anyway?
Wright: They were saying that God was-- in fact, if you look at the damning, condemning, if you look at Deuteronomy, it talks about blessings and curses, how God doesn't bless everything. God does not bless gang-bangers. God does not bless dope dealers. God does not bless young thugs that hit old women upside the head and snatch their purse. God does not bless that. God does not bless the killing of babies. God does not bless the killing of enemies. And when you look at blessings and curses out of that Hebrew tradition from the book of Deuteronomy, that's what the prophets were saying, that God is not blessing this. God does not bless it- bless us. And when we're calling them, the prophets call them to repentance and to come back to God. If my people who are called by my name, God says to Solomon, will humble themselves and pray, seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways. God says that wicked ways, not Jeremiah Wright, then will I hear from heaven.
Listening to just a little bit more of these comments than we've been shown over he past month, they start to make far more sense.
But ABC heard and saw everything before they began to put out their story.
They had it all.
It was ABC News who bought copies of various sermons by Rev. Wright and then proceeded to cherry-pick the most inflamatory statements within them, without providing any type of context or perspective on what Wright was actually trying to say. They distorted what he meant.
Deliberately.
Since they had access to the tapes, and since they were the ones to do the initial editing they made a conscious decision to distort his statements and smear the man.
In their initial story they choose NOT to mention Tuskeegee. Those choose NOT to mention Ambassador Peck. They choose NOT to mention Psalm 137, or the fact that Wright was contrasting how Governments fail, but God does not.
In their second story, they did note that the Church and it's current pastor had objected to the story saying that it was "character assassination".
Sen. Barack Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, denounced the media coverage of its retired pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying his "character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe."
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has made a number of controversial statements."It is an indictment on Dr. Wright's ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30- second sound bite," the church's current pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III said. "This is an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world," he added.
But then, although they had the tapes, the didn't even bother to try and showcase a single example of what Rev Moss was describing and by that time the original clips were rocking around the internet to be clucked over by every news outlet in the country, who didn't have the full tapes or even Bother to try and find them before coming to the conclusion that Wright was a "wackadoddle" and an obvious detriment to the Obama campaign. Instead of examining the merit of Moss's claim they focused on Barack Obama's claims that he knew nothing about these comments, and frankly, based on the his responses since that time - He was obviously telling the truth, because if he'd actually been in the pews at the time, or had head the entire recorded sermon in context, he never would have made the claim that Wright was an example of a "Generational Gap" between older black people who experienced the civil rights movement first hand who can't seem to "look at the better aspects of America" and himself.
Wright knows that America is a great country, but he also knows that it won't remain great and won't get greater unless we continually challenge to do so.
If Barack had seen and heard Wright's comments in full context, something only members of TUCC and the ABC Investigative Team had done previously, he would have been able to full and full-throatedly defend both Wright and his comments the way that Father Michael Pfleger did to Fox News.
They continued this trend with their second story on Wright.
But whose got time for that right? Instead, ABC dug up some more dirt.
Other sermons reviewed by ABC News, from videotapes sold by the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, reflect Rev. Wright's repeated attacks on the U.S. government as a "racist and arrogant superpower" that does not value its black citizens.
In one sermon in October 2005, Rev. Wright addressed the racial elements at play in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"The winds of Katrina blew the cover off America. The hurricane exposed the hypocrisy," Rev. Wright said, "protecting white folks' property took priority over saving black folks' lives." He continued, "This storm called Katrina says far more about a racist government than it does about the wrath of God."
In April 2003, Rev. Wright told his congregation that "the United States government has failed the vast majority of our citizens of African descent."
"For every one Oprah, a billionaire, you've got five million blacks who are out of work," he said. "For every one Colin Powell, a millionaire, you've got 10 million blacks who cannot read. For every one Condoskeeza [sic] Rice, you've got one million in prison. For every one Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat, at the Masters, with his cap-blazing hips, playing on a course that discriminates against women. For every one Tiger Woods, we got 10,000 black kids who will never see a golf course."
Here's the question - what part of what he's saying here isn't true?
Besides Brian Ross, the Byline on at least three of these stories was one REHAB EL-BURI. A brief cursory "cherry-picking" survey of El-Buri other stories seems to indicate that politics isn't even her normal beat. She normally covers stories related to Al-Qeada and Osama Bin Laden. Y'know - the Islamo-Fascist Beat.
# Taliban: Dutch Defense Chief's Son Killed Over Anti-Islam Film... Rehab El-Buri ...
Apr. 21, 2008 | Rehab El-Buri# Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
... Brian Ross; Rehab El-Buri ...
Apr. 16, 2008 | Brian Ross; Rehab El-Buri# Town Hall Meeting al Qaeda-Style
... Rehab El-Buri; Jason Ryan ...
Apr. 2, 2008 | Rehab El-Buri; Jason Ryan# Al Qaeda to Answer Online Questions
... Rehab El-Buri ...
Apr. 2, 2008 | Rehab El-Buri# Uproar Over Anti-Islam Film Falls Flat
... Rehab El-Buri ...
Mar. 28, 2008 | Rehab El-Buri# The Blotter: A New Message From OBL Expected
... Rehab El-Buri Reports: ...
Mar. 19, 2008# OBL: Revenge for Republishing Offensive Cartoons Will Be Severe
... Rehab El-Buri ...
Mar. 19, 2008 | Rehab El-Buri
I'm not going to presume that someone can't write a story outside their own personal perspective and experience, but why is an obvious "Muslim Reporter" who doesn't do political stories even covering what anyone says in a Black Christian Church?
I'm not one to draw broad conclusions from such a meager sampling of information - unlike Brian Ross and Rehab El-Buri - but could ABC have found someone who might have even less understanding of the History and Context of the Black Christian Church in America?
I'm just saying...
From reading some of El-buri work product, it appears that her insight into Islam seems to be begin and end with whatever the AP has for her next set of dictation and copy/paste practice.
But there was a political reporter, besides on-air host and "Investigative Unit Head" Brian Ross, involved in these stories, although they didn't recieve a Byline, by the name of Sunlen Miller
Some of Ms. Miller's recent stories:
* Political Radar: At Home in Midwest, Obama Explains Why He Refused Debate Challenge
... ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama spent his Sunday ...
Apr. 27, 2008
* Political Radar: Clinton Challenges Obama to a 'Lincoln-Douglas' Debate
... Eloise Harper and Sunlen Miller report: The Hillary Clinton campaign has ...
Apr. 26, 2008
* Political Punch: Obama on Those Who Say He Doesn't Respect the Flag: 'It's a Lie'
... ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports that the lanky Illinoisan said that folks ...
Apr. 26, 2008
* Political Radar: Obama on Bell: 'A Nation of Laws' Must 'Respect the Verdict'
... David Schoetz and Sunlen Miller Report: Reacting to the New York City ...
Apr. 25, 2008
* Political Radar: Obama: Rev. Wright's Response 'To Be Expected'
... ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: Following brief remarks outlining his ...
Apr. 25, 2008
* Political Radar: Elitist? Obama Says Nah - He's Got "Street Cred as a Down to Earth Guy"
... ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: Does having five suits, four pairs of ...
Apr. 25, 2008
* Appetite for Votes: Candidates Count Calories on the Campaign Trail
... eloise harper; sunlen miller; sarah amos ... Eloise Harper; Sunlen Miller & Sarah Amos ...
Apr. 25, 2008 | Eloise Harper; Sunlen Miller & Sarah Amos
So why didn't Sunlen, who is obviously a political reporter who has been covering Barack and the Democratic race for sometime and might be able to make some logical links and contrasts between what the candidate's been saying on the stump and what his ex-pastor has been saying in church based on something other than base conjecture, get the Byline?
Why couldn't they spare a sentence to point out that after writing two best selling novels, and hundreds of stump speeches Barack Obama himself has never said anything like Wright's comments? Did that fact even occur to them?
The claim is that this story was brought to us by ABC's "Investigative Team", if this is an example of the quality of their "Investigations" I'm glad this lot wasn't looking for Saddam's alleged WMD - they'd still be searching.
By this time the Media Narrative that Jeremiah Wright is a Radical Black Militant Christian Crazy has become solidified like granite. People like Andrea Mitchell are claiming that Wright said Obama was "just a politician" when what he actually said was that Barack's Philadelphia speech might led to some much needed racial reconciliation and healing, not that it was "just politics".
The truly sad part is that this LIE OF OMISSION has sparked a wave of domestic terrorism against the Trinity United Church of Christ including both death threats and bomb threats.
BILL MOYERS: What can you tell me about what's happened at the church since this controversy broke?
REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, the church members are very upset. Because they know it's a lie, the things that are being broadcast. Church members have been very supportive. The church members have been upset by behavior of some of the media; picking up church bulletins to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of the sick and shut-in, calling them to try to get stories. One lady they called in hospice. My members are very upset about that, our members are very upset about that. Our members are very upset about that. Our members know that this is what the media is doing. And our members know they're only doing it because of the political campaign. What have we gotten into here? People threatening, you know, Christians, some of 'em, threatening us, quoting scripture and telling us how they're going to wipe us off the face of the earth in the name of Jesus
BILL MOYERS: There had been death threats?
REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, there have. At, both on myself and on Pastor Moss, and bomb threats at the church.
This is despicable. It's just plain insane.
Someone may fairly disagree with what Wright said, it might even make you highly upset, but when it has reached the point where someone decides to abuse their own free speach by literally threatening the lives of a pastor and his congregation - we have gone completely off the rails.
Christians and Americans threatening to kill - to MURDER - other Christians and Americans. It's gotta stop.
ABC News started this.
ABC News needs to atone.
We need an LTE/Blogstorm of Biblical Proportions to makes sure we let ABC News know, and the rest of the media know, exactly what we think of their "Journalism" on this issue. This can't be allowed to stand.
Here's a current comment from World News Tonight message board.
Charlie1959: I wonder if anyone watched the entire interview with Rev. Wright and I keep hoping some talking head will express the truth about what the interview reveals.
I for one came away angered by what had been done by the media through the endless proliferation of 5 sec sound bites that completely distort the Rev. and the church he pastors.As an evangelical Christian I was appalled by the remarks and they made me like millions of Americans question Sen. Obama's suitability. But after listening to the pastor speak of his church and after listening to 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds of the actual sermon i found that i could embrace much of what the Rev. said and while uncomfortable with the language he uses i had to admit to being challenged both spiritually and as an American to look a little harder at myself and to examine the biases I bring to the discussion.
I will never trust sound bites or the news reporting that takes its lead from them the same way again.
Let Charlie know he is not alone.
Also here is link to Submit Your Comments to ABC News. Share your thoughts. Let them have a piece of your mind.
I plan to.
Vyan
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