Re: [Marxism] Malik Mah: Barack Obama, Reverend Wright and black liberation theology

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@earthlink.net>]

Who's Uncle is Really Crazy?
[col. writ. 5/1/08 (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

When conservative hit-shows first began raising questions about
Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the
Democratic candidate essentially played down the relationship,
suggesting that Wright was like the 'crazy uncle' common to many
families.

Due to the pressure of the 24 hour news cycle, we have come a long
way from there, to here.

While Sen. Obama no longer refers to him in this way, it's more than
worthwhile to examine just what the Rev. Wright did say, which set
off the belfry of mad bats who hold forth from the dark universe of
right wing radio and TV commentators.

Among the Rev. Wright's "controversial" comments were these:

"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... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done
overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's
chickens have come home to roost... Violence begets violence. Hatred
begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador
said that y'all, not a black militant... An ambassador whose eyes are
wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from
this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised..."

Rev. Wright's words on how America has treated her darker citizens
were also termed "controversial." These are some of them:

"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 her citizens of African
descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the
government 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, and
put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of
their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into
positions 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."

On the role of the U.S. government overseas, Wright preached the
following:

"Governments lie. The government lied about the Tuskegee
experiment... The government lied about bombing Cambodia...The
government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated
by Oliver North... The government lied about a connection between Al
Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9-11-01 and
operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie."

I don't know about you, but I've not heard one statement that isn't
categorically, historically, and absolutely true. As my good country
buddy, Bro. Willie might ask, "What the problem is?"

Obama's response, served up to placate the fascistic right, sounded
like an apology: "I reject outright statements by Reverend Wright
that are at issue."

The problem isn't that Rev. Wright was crazy, but that he spoke the
cold, sober truth. That's the problem.

The US nationalists demand that anyone who states such truths be
'denounced.'

When will a candidate emerge who will denounce imperialism, and the
endless ruinous wars against much of the Third World, for the profit
of corporations here?

If this election is any measure, no time soon.

Who's uncle is really crazy? Uncle Jeremiah or Uncle Sam?

--(c) '08 maj


=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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