Never-end Wright

Published
by
Steve Ander
on May 8, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Although I have classically been a Hillary supporter, I am going to have to say that this Reverend Wright stuff is just crap. I feel that it has all gone severely out of context and just happened to be on video media which can be edited down to the most damning excerpts. The fiery tape that has been circulating around the world reminds me a lot of Howard Dean’s “YEEE-ARGH” speech after Iowa in 2004. Completely taken out of context.

We all remember that speech where he did not do as well in Iowa as he had been polling, so instead of Eeyore-ing it to his supporters, he came out like Tigger. He tried to rally his troops who were so loud that he had to yell into the microphone. The buzz after that speech was that he was demonic, a fireball, perhaps even a warlock. The pundits started asking, “is he presidential?” And although I didn’t support Dean, the media just ran right over him. Where is the benefit of the doubt? Really, It was a rally, media. And people will never say as much on wikipedia.

The same goes for Reverend Wright. The man is a preacher, a man of God. The context of his sermon was not to say he was anti-American or hates America, or whatever, the man was trying to say America has had years of bad policy. The fact that he said “God damn America” might seem caustic on first glance, but keep in mind he is using all those words in different contexts than people are used to. When he says “God” he actually means God, rather than when people say it on the fly - “omg!” When he says “damn” he actually means “damn” as in to condemn - rather than when people say it as a reactive interjection. And when he says “America” he means America’s policies not its principles. His anger only shows his passion for how a country had gone off course from the Christian beliefs that, no doubt, he believes should be a consideration in governing.

To be fair, where is all the media coverage of John McCain speaking at Liberty University coupled with Jerry Falwell’s beliefs about how God was punishing America for its tolerance of gays? Should not he be damned as well? Is not his speaking there an implicit agreement with everything Falwell ever said, just like Obama’s association with Wright has been playing out?

Quite frankly, what some Reverends say to their congregations/followers should really be among those entities only. Not every member of a congregation believes everything their preacher says. God damn the media for letting this continue.

Written by Steve Ander - Visit Website

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Published
by
Emily Cadik
on May 7, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Having been in the Cambridge bubble almost exclusively for a few months now, it feels strange to come home to Texas. It’s sprawling, it’s humid, and people hold doors open – all of which are now foreign to me. It’s also home to a rare breed of Democrats.

My mom was recently elected the Democratic County Chair of Montgomery County. Being a supportive daughter, I accompanied her to a Montgomery County Democrats meeting whose purpose was to prep the delegates and alternates (Texas’ caucuses are far from over) for the state convention in June. This means everyone in the room was 1) an activist, and 2) had a strong candidate preference. The sniping began almost instantly.

One attendee accused the party leadership of engaging in a data entry conspiracy to diminish Clinton’s lead. Another attendee saw the fact that some Obama delegates did not show up to the meeting as evidence of a concerted effort to disenfranchise Obama supporters. Both sides on the offensive, the volume of the attacks increased. Retaliatory grumbles, profanity, and exchanges of conspiracy theories ensued.

Despite the hostility, however, I left the meeting feeling hopeful. After years of having a nonexistent Democratic Party organization, Montgomery County produced a room full of Democrats who cared enough about the party to fight with one another. Only three out of the 30 or so attendees had been to the state convention before; the delegation was almost entirely new faces. One delegate was so excited about his newfound love of democracy that he asked (several months late) if there was any way he could run for office this November.

In the 2004 Democratic primary, around 3,000 Democrats turned out to vote in Montgomery County. In the primary this march, there were over 30,000. Judging from this meeting, some of them are aggressive, and some are eccentric.  I would expect no less from Texas. But after a long hibernation, I was glad to see latent activists get excited about politics again. I can only hope that local meetings across the country are also filled with newly inspired Democrats, even if they don’t all get along.

Written by Emily Cadik - Visit Website

Photo of the Day

Published
by
Sam Sanders
on May 7, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Yeah, I voted for Hillary, but this one brought a tear to my eye. If only for the kids, Gobama…

Written by Sam Sanders - Visit Website

Did Hillary Just Give Up?

Published
by
Dori Glanz
on May 6, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

I was listening to her speech tonight from Indiana in the background while cooking dinner (I missed the first part). And, half way through, I was sure that she was giving up, stepping down, ending this whole thing. She did the thank yous, and not in a stump speech kind of way. She was all about Democratic unity. She said she’d work her heart out for the “Democratic Nominee” as if she wasn’t running for that particular position. The tone was sweet and kinda sad. I put down the spatula and went to double check she was still winning in Indiana. Even the end, when she said that Florida and Michigan should be counted, sounded more like a condition than a challenge. And I’m not just saying that because Chris Matthews just did (HA!).

Maybe this will end sooner rather than later, even if she wins in Indiana. Who would have thought …

Written by Dori Glanz - Visit Website

The American SUV

Published
by
Andy OConnell
on May 5, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

I am out of town today and we rented a car. They were out of any vehicle approximating a normal size, so I am stuck with a giant Dodge Durango. It’s the first time I’ve driven such a comically oversized auto and it has made me think a lot about America’s clichéd obsession with SUVs. I think I’ve figured it out: the SUV is a perfect analogy for our approach to the international community. The US government - its structure, foreign policy, demeanor, etc. - is an SUV on the highway of international history.

Americans like the SUV because it is big and makes us feel safe, and we like our bulging military-industrial complex for the same reasons. Sure, we know it’s harder to drive an SUV and that we are a bit more likely to get into an accident (by causing it). We know that spending over half a trillion dollars on defense is going to create incentives to engage in ill-advised conflicts and will engender an arrogant attitude among our foreign policy leaders. We know that SUVs are bad for the environment, that it¹s mildly absurd to see a 90-pound yoga instructor driving a 4-ton beast, and that no one needs to be able to haul 700 pounds of groceries at a time. We know that bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy poisons the diplomatic atmosphere, that saber-rattling isn¹t helpful except in the most extreme cases, and that no nation needs the power to kill everyone on the planet 7 times over.

We know that SUVs and America¹s recent belligerence offend reasonable sensibilities and will make the world a worse place overall. Yes, we might crash. Yes, we might start a disastrous and counterproductive war. But we don’t really care, because we’ll probably be fine when the smoke clears. Screw the foreigner in the hybrid we just ran over. He should stay the hell out of our way. Find your own highway! This is America’s world order, don’t you know? If we crash, so what? We have 8 airbags. And OnStar. We have Navy Seals. And Paetreus.

Written by Andy O'Connell - Visit Website

Gas Tax Holiday = Bad Idea

Published
by
Sam Sanders
on May 4, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

After spending the last two weeks here at HKS becoming an “expert” on climate change (thanks Spring Exercise), I’ve become pretty concerned about America’s ridiculous level of carbon emissions and energy consumption.

So, when I heard that Hillary and John McCain were proposing “gas tax holidays,” I got a little perturbed. Clearly a ploy to attract voters, this holiday wouldn’t be enough of a saving to help anyone out, and at worst, it would only urge people to use more gas or oil companies to raise their prices even more.

This is a bad idea. Americans consumption factor is 32 times that of the undeveloped world. If anything, we need HIGHER gas taxes (albeit progressive ones that don’t unduly hurt the poor) to slow our reckless use of energy. I hate to admit it, but Barack’s rejection of this gas tax holiday is the right decision.

That’s correct—I just said Obama’s right about something. I need to go lie down.

Written by Sam Sanders - Visit Website

The 100 Years War

Published
by
Adam Cooper
on May 2, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

It’s starting to anger me that the media is actually buying McCain’s umbrage every time Obama or Clinton, or more recently the DNC, accuse him of having said he would support war in Iraq for 100 years. McCain says he was only speaking in a hypothetical, and was trying to draw a comparison to our military presence in South Korea and Germany. But let’s look at the actual quote:

Q: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years — (cut off by McCain)

McCAIN: Make it a hundred.

Q: Is that … (cut off)

McCAIN: We’ve been in South Korea … we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans …

Q: [tries to say something]

McCAIN: As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day.

The quote certainly doesn’t lay out a plan to stay there for a hundred years — that would be absurd, and no one claims that McCain has suggested that — but the clear implication of the comment is that McCain would find a one hundred year occupation in Iraq acceptable if necessary. Of course, he provides the caveat that there be no American casualties, but he might as well provide the caveat that pigs fly — I’m not sure which is less likely. So it’s one of two options: either McCain actually wants us there in a 100 year hot war, or his misconception of the realities there are so great that he actually thinks it’s possible for us to be there without incurring additional casualties. I don’t know about you, but I’m not happy with either one.

Written by Adam Cooper - Visit Website

A Wright To Be Mad

Published
by
Sam Sanders
on April 30, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

You’re right that at times in his response, Wright went too far, Adam. I’ll totally agree with you on that one.

But I’m upset that a lot of people are putting undue responsibility on Wright. He does not have a responsibility to alter his message to help Barack Obama politically. He does not have a responsibility to say what the media wants him to say, in a way they want him to say it. He does not have a responsibility to unite a country that has sworn him off as anti-patriotic. He does not have a responsibility to be a “Negro tour guide” for misinformed and underinformed non-Blacks.

At this point, his only responsibility is to speak his mind–and be as angry as he wants to be.

This article says everything I want to say, just more articulately — please read!

Written by Sam Sanders - Visit Website

Rev. Wrong

Published
by
Adam Cooper
on April 29, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

With due respect to Sam, I’m gonna need to throw him under the bus for a moment and disagree with his last post on Rev. Wright. I don’t think anyone contends that the man is entirely wrong, and we honor his service as a Marine. But to ignore some of the extraordinarily hurtful and downright incorrect things that he’s said is just as counterproductive as the original comments.

Yes, we have a long and tortured history with race relations in this country, but Wright does nothing to heal those wounds. I watched his speech before the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday, and I watched his comments before the National Press Club on Monday. The reverend makes some important points, and the overall message he attempts to convey — that people of various backgrounds are “not deficient, just different” — is one that we can all embrace. Yet the messenger does the message no favors with his delivery. His speech included multiple mocking impersonations of white people, including a mocking aside about the accents of two former presidents and a discussion of the differences between those who pray boisterously and those who do so quietly. He reserved no small degree of distaste for those whose religious traditions were not as vocal as those of the black church, and it totally undercut his message — you could tell by his words and his tone that he did think their way was deficient, not merely different. If he had expressed some of his ideas on race the way Sam does, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation right now.

Of course, that’s mild compared with the comments he made the following day at the National Press Club, most of which were a re-hash of the YouTube videos we’ve all seen a hundred times. Indicating that Arab perception of U.S. foreign policy played a role in Al Qaeda’s motivation behind the 9/11 attacks is not controversial, or at least it shouldn’t be. But it’s Wright’s implication that the U.S. somehow deserved it that I and others find deeply offensive, let alone those who lost loved ones in those attacks — and let’s not forget, the initial comments, reiterated Monday, were originally made the Sunday following 9/11. The same is true of the utterly incorrect and frankly irresponsible assertions that Wright reiterated yesterday over the role of the U.S. government in spreading HIV/AIDS in the black community — not only is the assertion wrong, it does nothing but deepen a racial divide that we all should be working to heal.

Most troubling of all was his complete failure to mention anything that actually unites people. I think Obama was right — Wright’s way of thinking represents a world view colored entirely by a time passed, and which he has failed to update or inform with any of the progress of the past thirty to forty years. He did mention one thing, though, that should be more troubling to Democrats than anything else in the speech, should Obama be the nominee: he has a book coming out “later this year”. Let’s hope he meant December.

Written by Adam Cooper - Visit Website

Rev. Right

Published
by
Sam Sanders
on April 29, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

As a product of the Black church, I’m angered at the mainstream media’s recent persecution of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor. I’d tell you how I’d feel about Barack throwing him under the bus, but I already beat up on Obama enough…

Nevertheless, here’s my beef—as hyperbolic and angry as Wright was, he was RIGHT! His main points:
1.    US foreign policy had a role to play in the attacks of September 11th.
2.    America’s history, especially with Black and Brown people, is not pretty.
3.    Our problem with race in this country is far from over.

I know many Americans, of any color, would agree with these three points. But we call Wright’s words unpatriotic. That anyone would call a man who proudly served his country in the armed services, who was part of LBJ’s attending medical staff, unpatriotic is beyond me. His social action against AIDS, poverty and educational disparities through his church is phenomenal. He’s a hero.

And even if the media won’t admit it, he has a right to be angry. If you grew up in his day, as a Black man in a deeply segregated country, called a nigger or a boy instead of a man, using “separate but equal” facilities in a country you fought to defend, fearing violence for being on the wrong side of the tracks, or the wrong side of the protest line, you’d probably have some beef, too. I missed a lot of the action, and I’M still mad.

We shouldn’t come down so harshly on Wright. We need to acknowledge that a lot of this vitriol is really fear, fear of confronting our nation’s troubled past. I’m not saying that Wright should lead that national discussion to confront the skeletons in the closet, but anything that brings us closer to acknowledging the need for it is fine by me.

So anyone who says he should just keep his mouth shut needs to back off. He’s making a point that needs to be made. And, as this angry Black man will tell you, part of being angry means making sure you’re heard.

Preach on preacher

Written by Sam Sanders - Visit Website