Shooting God's Messengers
"God Damn America"
That was the line that got Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and subsequently Obama himself, in trouble with the mainstream media. This piles on top of the endorsement of Obama by Louis Farrakhan, an endorsement Obama was required to, "denounce and reject [my emph.]." This is yet another in a series of double standards applied against Obama, and moreover the Democratic party, as opposed to the Republicans and their candidate, John McCain. In addition, it is yet another example of how the Democratic party is giving John McCain a free ride.
For those who missed it, this is what pastor Wright said: "The government gives them [African Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ’God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
There are other quotes from pastor Wright that have been deemed incendiary, about 9/11 being the result of our support for terrorist states and people (shock) "hating on" Barack Obama because he is not a rich white male. He even had the audacity to say that Hillary Clinton does not know what it is like to be black. My God! How dare he suggest that the Wellesley/Yale educated Senator who grew up in suburban Cook County would not know what it is like to be black? The nerve!
First off, I think Barack Obama is doing a good thing in not throwing his pastor under the bus. There is no question that Obama has known this man for years. He’s a long time friend and spiritual adviser to Obama. He has said Jeremiah Wright was instrumental in bringing him "to Christ." And I think it shows great character on the part of the Senator to say that I don’t support what he said, but he is someone who has meant a great deal to me, and nothing will change that. Very classy.
That being said, if it wasn’t for a clear media bias and a complete lack of spine on the part of the Democrats, the Republicans would be opening up a can of worms made out of semtex and det cord. Fortunately for them, thanks to the Democrats, these worms are made of Play-Doh.
Weapons of Mass Deception
On another note, does anyone else remember the Values Voter Conference? It was way back when there were still seven guys running for the Republican nomination and John McCain was polling somewhere behind syphilis- er, Giuliani. There was a debate hosted by these people who act as the base for the Republican Party. Apparently, the rest of us are chimps determining our vote by flinging our own poo at photos of the candidates taped to our cage bars, but these people have "values." At any rate, this debate was opened with a rousing chorus of, "Why Should God Bless America?" That’s right. They sang a song about why God should shun America to the tune of "God Bless America."
Imagine for one moment that a liberal group did this. Fox Noise would be all over it, stomping it into the ground like a hippie’s head. They’re unpatriotic! They hate America! And they’d never let it go. Every candidate on that stage would have to come out with a barrage of statements and photo-ops filled with families and babies smothered in apple pie all set against the back drop of the American flag just to dull the voices of outcry to a dull roar. But, because it was their guys, the Republican noise machine is silent. So, if America is as evil and un-Godly as they say she is, then that means the people present were either heathens and sinners as well, or they are not Americans. Personally, I’d go with the latter.
Chock Full O’Nuts
Every election season has its odd balls, crack pots, weirdos, and other assorted Muppets. This time, most of them are lining up behind Senator John McCain. First and foremost is pastor John Hagee. He’s got it all. A big old church with over 18,000 members, CEO of the non-profit Global Evangelism Television. And oh yeah. He’s got a big damn mouth.
He has called the Catholic Church "the Great Whore," and he has blamed it for the Holocaust, as Hitler went to a Catholic school where he was taught "the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther." But for all his rhetoric deploring anti-Semitism, all oppression the Jews face to this day, including the Holocaust, are the result of their rejecting the one true god.
This was much the same argument he used when he claimed that the people of New Orleans brought about hurricane Katrina as a result of the extra-gay pride parade they were planning. The hurricane missed the parts of town where the parade was scheduled to take place. We can only assume that this is because God has really bad aim.
He has also stated that those who follow the Koran have a spiritual mandate to kill Jews and Christians. There are, he claimed, more Muslims who want to come to America and Israel than there were Axis soldiers in World War II.
Then there’s Rod Parsley. Parsley is another preacher man who has real issues with the whole, Moo-ha-mid thing. In fact, his book, Silent No More, which was runner up for the title of "Worst Name for a Bond Film Ever," has a chapter entitled, "Islam: The Deception of Allah." In this chapter, he calls Allah a demon who tricked Muhammad. He also states, "The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed…" It is his contention that Christopher Columbus was an anti-Muslim crusader. "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492…Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America."
And Parsley notes that violence is not unusual in Islam. "There are some, of course, who will say that the violence I cite is the exception and not the rule. I beg to differ. I will counter, respectfully, that what some call ’extremists’ are instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam." Note that he counters, respectfully. Well, pastor, respectfully, what you call faith and righteousness is in fact xenophobia and racism drawing from a well of fear drilled to keep people irrational and terrified and, respectfully, if there is a God and a Hell then there is most certainly a circle in it for people like you, you fear-mongering, racist, asshat…respectfully. Really, how do you say all out war is inevitable between Christianity and Islam and then act self-righteous when you say it’s the other side that’s violent?
Parsley has also called for the prosecution of adulterers, compared Planned Parenthood to the Nazis, and referred to himself on several occasions as a "Christocrat." You know you’re dealing with a rational human being when 6,000,000 Jews have the same moral standing as sperm and zygotes.
Google It If Ye Doubt
To demonstrate my point, I decided to run a quick search on Google News. I punched in the phrases "John Hagee" and "Jeremiah Wright" into the search bar to see what it spit out. According the the Google machine, there are 642 stories in the news that mention John Hagee, regardless of context. Jeremiah Wright scored 2,865. So there are more than four times as many stories about Obama’s crazy endorser as there are about McCain’s. In fact, I’m betting most of you hadn’t even heard of John Hagee. (UPDATE: These numbers were from yesterday before Obama’s big speech. The new numbers are: Wright - 4,956, Hagee - 679…Bears 27) Parsley, if you’re curious, comes in at 60. By comparison, the herb racks up a score of 1,376.
While the media may consider these people insignificant, I believe it foolish to think they will have no effect on this election. With a candidate like McCain, who has little passionate support within his party, it is people like Hagee and Parsley, those who do have a very strong, rabid following who will bring out the vote for McCain. McCain has since disavowed any statements by Hagee, "if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics." He never made any statement regarding the nature of the content or his feelings on the statements of Hagee. He just said he rejected the statements if they were offensive. He can’t tell for himself whether or not having their church called, "The Great Whore" might offend Catholics.
It is disturbing to think this could all go unchecked, and naïve to think that the international press hasn’t taken note and been seriously disturbed by the comments mentioned above. It should also be noted that while Obama has a long standing relationship with his pastor, a man with 30 years of preaching behind him, of which only sixty seconds have been seized upon by the media, Obama did not ask for his pastor’s endorsement any more than he asked for the endorsement of Farrakhan. McCain has no pre-existing relationship with the hateful, vitriolic pastors who endorsed him. McCain sought out and courted their endorsements. However, since the media is too busy writing I (HEART) JOHN MCCAIN over and over again on their notepads and the Democrats are busy with the kind of debate that makes a room full of squabbling second graders look like Frost/Nixon, it’s unlikely that any of this will see the light of day any time soon.