Submitted by Pam Strickland on Sat, 2008/05/31 - 5:45pm.
I'm headed out the door, but wanted to bring to attention that The New York Times is reporting that in light of the sermons that have been preached there, Barak Obama has resigned his membership in Trinity United Church of Christ.
Submitted by Pam Strickland on Sun, 2008/06/01 - 11:23am.
Personally, I don't see this as hypocrisy. i see this as a member of a congregation who has been mistreated and put in an untenable situation by the clergy of this congregation repeatedly in the last few months. Sometimes, you have to walk away from such things.
Yes, people are going to see it as being politically expedient. If that had been the case, I think he would have done it much sooner. I think this is a man who has truly been thrown for a loop by a place and a people that he had trusted. He thought about it. He probably talked it over with his wife. Then he took the action.
Expedient. Maybe. But for those of us who are practitioners of the Christian faith, of any faith, such decisions are not made lightly.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
Submitted by Andy Axel on Sun, 2008/06/01 - 12:01pm.
I think this is a man who has truly been thrown for a loop by a place and a people that he had trusted.
He was a member of this congregation for years, and Wright and Pfleger didn't just become "like that" overnight.
Fact of the matter is, he was an active participant in that congregation, and he didn't have a problem with it until its rhetoric saw the light of day in the national press.
Now, whether or not that portrayal is fair is another question. But betrayal? No way.
____________________________
"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"
Kelefa Sanneh argues that Obama fundamentally misread Wright's core beliefs, thinking he could filter out the bitterness and angry cadence and keep the hopefulness. But to an existentialist, hope and bitterness are two sides of the same coin.
Audacious hopefulness is sometimes said to be the thing that separates Obama from more conventional politicians, but it is also what separates him from the radicals who have given it up. (The Back to Africa movement—echoed in Wright’s Afrocentric approach to Christianity—was, in part, a politics of resignation, fuelled by a sense that America would never be truly hospitable to blacks.) Hope is proof that Obama believes in the system, after all. And it is what helps him appeal to swing voters with fond memories of Bill Clinton, who never tired of reminding voters that he was born in a town called Hope.
Wright’s hope is a different thing. His 1991 “Audacity to Hope” sermon was based on 1 Samuel 1:1-18, which tells the story of a woman, Hannah, childless and bereft, who prays for a son. Wright isn’t interested in the happy ending, so he doesn’t mention 1 Samuel 1:20, in which Hannah finally gives birth. Instead, he dwells on her torment, comparing her to Martin Luther King, Jr., in his last years, when the civil-rights coalition seemed to be crumbling and his old allies were criticizing his increasingly comprehensive political program. “There was nothing on the horizon to say that he should keep on hoping, but he kept on hoping anyhow,” Wright said. For Wright, earthly adversity and the struggle against it are existential. If he thinks that things haven’t changed much in the past hundred years, it’s because he thinks that things haven’t changed much in the past two thousand years. You don’t hope because the odds look good. You hope because they don’t.
Submitted by priscilla (not verified) on Sun, 2008/06/01 - 4:28pm.
It's all becoming so clear. Obama is a Closet Republican preened by his Chicago mob buddies. This is another sham to get the voters to vote for McCain in the GE. I bet Pfleger was bought and paid for the the Republicans. Surely nobody is that damned ignorant. It's win-win for the Pubes. Wait and see. The peoples votes DO NOT COUNT in the primaries at all. I'm going to tally up all the democrat state delegates who have endorsed against their state's wishes. It's an unbelievable number. Bend over America- It's Bush politics as usual.
Submitted by Johnny Ringo on Mon, 2008/06/02 - 7:37am.
It's all becoming so clear. Obama is a Closet Republican preened by his Chicago mob buddies...Bend over America- It's Bush politics as usual.
Wow. Just wow. So Hillary is a Gooper plant, executing the Karl Rove strategy, in order to bring down Obama, who is also a Repubelican plant. And of course Nader has only been inserted into the race for insurance.
I guess your only hope is to vote for the only real Democrat in the race - John McCain!
I couldn't understand that one either. I chalked it up as parody of some sort, which seems to be all that is left of Hillary's campaign.
This whole dust-up has made it clear that partisan Democrats have no clearer view of reality than partisan Republicans. They don't fight for principles, just for their tribe. It has helped me understand why they have been such a poor minority party -- they see little inherent power in facts and principles, only in who can yell the loudest. Since Republicans own most of the bullhorns, Dems just concede to them, though they are still willing to yell at each other and anyone on the margins.
Submitted by JosephBaileyOne on Mon, 2008/06/02 - 3:34pm.
I guess you buy into Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy" to explain everything? Bush politics huh? Well, what have you done to get the US Congress to actually do their job? There is not a single act a President can take unless Congress funds it and why that so many "Bush-haters" have been totally unwilling to hold Congress accountable is beyond me.
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
Submitted by Carole Borges on Mon, 2008/06/02 - 7:27am.
There is a tradition and direct African linkage to the kinds of rhetorical style used by preachers like Rev. Wright. In his important book "The Signifying Monkey", Henry Louis Gates, a fabulous African American scholar, spends a great deal of time talking about the tradition of "signifying". Esu was the African god of discourse. This paper summarizes some of Gates' conclusions.
"If Esu stands for discourse upon a text, then his Pan-African kinsman, the Signifying Monkey, stands for the rhetorical strategies of which each literary text consists. For the Signifying Monkey exists as the great trope of Afro-American discourse, and the trope of tropes, his language of Signifyin(g) [this is Gates's coinage for the black vernacular practice of signification, particularly oral practices involving double-voiced trickery through indirection that can involve innuendo, needling, and ridiculing] is his verbal sign in the Afro-American tradition."
Reading "The Signifying Monkey" was one of the biggest literary challenges I have ever faced. It took me a couple of years to read and re-read it and to understand the importance of what Gates was saying, but the things I learned in the process were amazing.
As fond as I have grown of Esu and the Signifying Monkey's delightful ability to put someone in their place or express truth, I think it may be time to say goodbye to the ancient monkey. The Signifying Monkey might be a great teacher when it comes to verbal ju-jitsu, but as a politician he sucks. If he isn't preaching to the choir, the poor old thing looks like a fool.
Submitted by JosephBaileyOne on Mon, 2008/06/02 - 3:31pm.
I would like to comment on this latest Obama church issue. Now I am not a Democrat, nor a Republican, but an American who now believes more than ever that political parties need to be put to rest. That being said, I find it a little disturbing that so many Dem's are excited about a man that appears willing to sell his soul, if need be, to be President.
First, he rips his former Pastor. Then his white granny. Now he rips and runs from his church of twenty years. This doesn't speak much of change to me but of a politician willing to do absolutely anything to be President.
Do you really want a man in the office that holds the nuclear trigger who will do all of this?
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
Submitted by JosephBaileyOne on Wed, 2008/06/04 - 1:00am.
No, I clearly read them as I have read them all for over the last year now. Stating that I have not read something when in fact I have is oxymoronic. On top of that it is not my fault that you are unable to see past your blinders of defending a politician.
I happened to be concerned about the Constitution, not making people feel good because a black man, that is nowhere near qualified for the Presidency and is in the running solely because he is black, is running for office.
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
The hypocrisy of religion and the hypocrisy of politics. Is he uniting or dividing?
Personally, I don't see this as hypocrisy. i see this as a member of a congregation who has been mistreated and put in an untenable situation by the clergy of this congregation repeatedly in the last few months. Sometimes, you have to walk away from such things.
Yes, people are going to see it as being politically expedient. If that had been the case, I think he would have done it much sooner. I think this is a man who has truly been thrown for a loop by a place and a people that he had trusted. He thought about it. He probably talked it over with his wife. Then he took the action.
Expedient. Maybe. But for those of us who are practitioners of the Christian faith, of any faith, such decisions are not made lightly.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
He was a member of this congregation for years, and Wright and Pfleger didn't just become "like that" overnight.
Fact of the matter is, he was an active participant in that congregation, and he didn't have a problem with it until its rhetoric saw the light of day in the national press.
Now, whether or not that portrayal is fair is another question. But betrayal? No way.
____________________________
"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"
Kelefa Sanneh argues that Obama fundamentally misread Wright's core beliefs, thinking he could filter out the bitterness and angry cadence and keep the hopefulness. But to an existentialist, hope and bitterness are two sides of the same coin.
It's all becoming so clear. Obama is a Closet Republican preened by his Chicago mob buddies. This is another sham to get the voters to vote for McCain in the GE. I bet Pfleger was bought and paid for the the Republicans. Surely nobody is that damned ignorant. It's win-win for the Pubes. Wait and see. The peoples votes DO NOT COUNT in the primaries at all. I'm going to tally up all the democrat state delegates who have endorsed against their state's wishes. It's an unbelievable number. Bend over America- It's Bush politics as usual.
It's all becoming so clear. Obama is a Closet Republican preened by his Chicago mob buddies...Bend over America- It's Bush politics as usual.
Wow. Just wow. So Hillary is a Gooper plant, executing the Karl Rove strategy, in order to bring down Obama, who is also a Repubelican plant. And of course Nader has only been inserted into the race for insurance.
I guess your only hope is to vote for the only real Democrat in the race - John McCain!
Wow. Just wow.
I couldn't understand that one either. I chalked it up as parody of some sort, which seems to be all that is left of Hillary's campaign.
This whole dust-up has made it clear that partisan Democrats have no clearer view of reality than partisan Republicans. They don't fight for principles, just for their tribe. It has helped me understand why they have been such a poor minority party -- they see little inherent power in facts and principles, only in who can yell the loudest. Since Republicans own most of the bullhorns, Dems just concede to them, though they are still willing to yell at each other and anyone on the margins.
I guess you buy into Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy" to explain everything? Bush politics huh? Well, what have you done to get the US Congress to actually do their job? There is not a single act a President can take unless Congress funds it and why that so many "Bush-haters" have been totally unwilling to hold Congress accountable is beyond me.
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
There is not a single act a President can take unless Congress funds it
You obviously haven't paid any attention to Bush, Congress nor the criticisms registered against both.
I dare say that I have paid as much attention to it as you or anyone else in this nation.
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
Asserts facts not in evidence.
JBO, if you care about the Constitution as much as you claim, do you support pressing Congress to impeach the lawless Bushists?
Liberty and justice for all.
My home
It's sad that Obama felt he needed to do this.
Liberty and justice for all.
My home
If you can't say something good...
I will shut up now.
There is a tradition and direct African linkage to the kinds of rhetorical style used by preachers like Rev. Wright. In his important book "The Signifying Monkey", Henry Louis Gates, a fabulous African American scholar, spends a great deal of time talking about the tradition of "signifying". Esu was the African god of discourse. This paper summarizes some of Gates' conclusions.
Link...
"If Esu stands for discourse upon a text, then his Pan-African kinsman, the Signifying Monkey, stands for the rhetorical strategies of which each literary text consists. For the Signifying Monkey exists as the great trope of Afro-American discourse, and the trope of tropes, his language of Signifyin(g) [this is Gates's coinage for the black vernacular practice of signification, particularly oral practices involving double-voiced trickery through indirection that can involve innuendo, needling, and ridiculing] is his verbal sign in the Afro-American tradition."
Reading "The Signifying Monkey" was one of the biggest literary challenges I have ever faced. It took me a couple of years to read and re-read it and to understand the importance of what Gates was saying, but the things I learned in the process were amazing.
As fond as I have grown of Esu and the Signifying Monkey's delightful ability to put someone in their place or express truth, I think it may be time to say goodbye to the ancient monkey. The Signifying Monkey might be a great teacher when it comes to verbal ju-jitsu, but as a politician he sucks. If he isn't preaching to the choir, the poor old thing looks like a fool.
I would like to comment on this latest Obama church issue. Now I am not a Democrat, nor a Republican, but an American who now believes more than ever that political parties need to be put to rest. That being said, I find it a little disturbing that so many Dem's are excited about a man that appears willing to sell his soul, if need be, to be President.
First, he rips his former Pastor. Then his white granny. Now he rips and runs from his church of twenty years. This doesn't speak much of change to me but of a politician willing to do absolutely anything to be President.
Do you really want a man in the office that holds the nuclear trigger who will do all of this?
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
You clearly did not read any of the news stories about this with an open mind and discerning eye.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
No, I clearly read them as I have read them all for over the last year now. Stating that I have not read something when in fact I have is oxymoronic. On top of that it is not my fault that you are unable to see past your blinders of defending a politician.
I happened to be concerned about the Constitution, not making people feel good because a black man, that is nowhere near qualified for the Presidency and is in the running solely because he is black, is running for office.
The U.S. Constitution, it is what makes us free and makes us American. Let's treat it as such and with care.
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