Hillary Clinton Mixes Church & State?

CLINTON’S MORAL HIGH GROUND

In order to deflect the media’s attention from her false claims about Bosnia, Hillary Clinton has attempted to re-ignite the Wright issue. Until now, she has avoided the issue but she said Tuesday in Pennsylvania that she would have “left the church in protest if he were her pastor”.

THE HOPE
Hillary is banking on the hope that American people will continue to be more upset by Wright’s remarks than her lies about Bosnia. (Yes, lies. She didn’t earn “four Pinocchios“ from the Washington Post for “misspeaking”.)

Hillary is also banking on the hope (and probable reality) that the media will not investigate her own secretive religious group who’s goal is “a leadership led by God–leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit.”

It seems a lot of the “God-led people”, according to the Fellowship, happen to be vicious dictators.

According to the Fellowship’s archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship’s God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators.

Hillary has been an active member of this religious group for 15 years. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection.

THE HYPE
Fortunately for her, the tabloid-like media scrutiny of religious connections only applies to Obama. As mentioned in a previous post, the controversial words of McCain’s “spiritual advisers” have also been largely ignored.

SOURCE: Hillary Clinton’s Criticism May Come Back to Haunt Her
SOURCE: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics

Published in: on March 27, 2008 at 3:43 pm Comments (0)
Tags: , , , ,

Video / Transcript: Jeremiah Wright 9/11 in Context

DO WE HOLD THE MEDIA ACCOUNTABLE?

See how misleading the post-9/11 sound bite of Jeremiah Wright’s 35 minute sermon, really was. It matters greatly as people believe such sermons are what Obama heard on a regular basis.

The media has sold a story of an anti-American message given one week after the tragedy took place in order to tug at the heartstrings and patriotic sensibilities of Americans. Intentional smear? Read the full transcript of 9 minute sermon and see for yourself.

FOX News first aired the soundbites which have been repeatedly re-broadcast by mainstream media.

  • Did you know that Wright starts out the sermon speaking of the “tragedy” of 9/11″ but says that a war killing innocent people as “payback” is wrong as is racism against them? He talks about the “insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred”. He says people have:

“moved from a worship of God to the worship of war against those whom God has created… They have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents.”

  • Did you know that the media plays the sound bite as if Wright was unmoved by the tragedy of 9/11 but it’s clearly not true when you see the footage?

Wright mentions that he was stuck 20 minutes outside of New York in Newark, New Jersey on September 11th. He remained there for 4 days since all New York airports were closed, and he was unable to get to Chicago for a funeral.

  • Wright preaches against the killing of unarmed civilians, children and what happens when war occurs. His sermon decries the killing of innocent people anywhere, including what has happened in this country to Native Americans, Japanese Americans and others.
  • Wright says “Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred.”
  • Wright goes on to ask in the sermon “What should our response be in light of such an unthinkable act? I asked the Lord that question Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I was stuck in Newark, NJ…” He calls for nonviolence and an end to hatred.

Perhaps now we can see how an excerpt can be grossly misleading. Why are we not shown these longer clips on the news media?

Published in: on March 22, 2008 at 4:55 pm Comments (1)
Tags: , , , , ,

Bill Clinton & Jeremiah Wright

WRIGHT INVITED TO WHITE HOUSE

Hillary Clinton has been rather quiet about the Jeremiah Wright issue even though she is silently trying to take advantage of it in the downturn of public opinion towards Obama.

However, if we maintain (contrary to what UCC’s own white pastor says) that Jeremiah Wright has been giving racist, anti-American messages to his congregation for 20 years… why did the Clinton’s formally invite him to the White House?

Bill Clinton & Jeremiah Wright

Bill Clinton and Jeremiah Wright are photographed among a group of clerics and others at the annual prayer breakfast in September 1998. Sen. Hillary Clinton, then first lady, was also in the room for the prayer breakfast.

Perhaps the media portrayal we have of Wright, is not the one that the Clinton’s knew of. Otherwise, why would they invite a so-called “outspoken racist and anti-American” pastor to their once-a-year prayer breakfast?

With black voters heavily backing Bill Clinton, it would be hard to believe he (or White House personnel) did not know of Wright’s reputation at one of the largest churches in Chicago.

SOURCE: New York Times.

Published in: on March 21, 2008 at 12:54 pm Comments (1)
Tags: , , , , ,

Jeremiah Wright: The Man We Love To Hate

“The truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man.”

This is what Obama has said about Jeremiah Wright’s widely distributed statements. It’s true that if the media constantly reprinted the “anti-American” remarks of this other black preacher (as much as they do the “God Damn America” snippet from Wright) we might have a different memory of the man below:

Don’t let anybody make you think that God chose America as His divine messianic force to be — a sort of policeman of the whole world. … I can hear God saying to America: “You are too arrogant! If you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name.”

Scandalous? Perhaps. The speech above was from Martin Luther King, Jr.

The point is, out of hundreds of sermons that are available for sale to the public from Jeremiah Wright - the media has only found three passages to broadcast over and over again. Surely such a hate-mongering man would have more sermons to pull from?

THE SHORTEST SERMONS EVER

We get 30 second sound bites from 45 minute sermons. This fuels our fury for Wright’s lifetime of preaching. How many people outside of his congregation have heard any sermons in context?

Published in: on March 19, 2008 at 2:40 pm Comments (3)
Tags: , , , , , ,

Obama Speech: Race, Unity & Jeremiah Wright

Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia today addressing race, his pastor and unity in general.

On unity: I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes.

On Rev. Wright: I can not disown him just as I can not disown my white grandmother (who loved me) but once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the streets. The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

On his relationship with Wright: If all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way [as others who question my association with him]. The truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man.

On race in America: The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

On the future:
I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

–

Good speech. We’ll see if this allows us to get back to the actual political race, instead of going back and forth on whose side can release (or drudge up) the latest inflammatory, racially-tinged remarks. Let’s acknowledge racial baggage still exists, and it’s a good idea, to at least attempt to move beyond it.

Now, if everyone, including the MEDIA, could just find some new topics… One can dream, at least.

    Published in: on March 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm Comments (1)
    Tags: , , , , , , ,