Town Hall Meeting

29 Apr 2008

Background, Context: What a Novel Idea!

Filed under: — Al @ 9:20 pm

Bill Moyers consistently goes in depth to actually look at an issue. His interview with Rev. Wright is no different. Please watch the video or read the transcript. Rev. Wright (and now Bill Moyers for that matter) is being treated like a villain without any evidence to back it up, and most news media give only little sound-bites by which to judge him. After watching this I learned the guy was a US Marine for 6 years, and is extremely intelligent-he has multiple Master’s Degrees. He cares deeply for people who suffer. And, the remarks he made, when taken in context, are quite intelligent and need to be said. The only remarkable thing about this is that no one is allowed to speak the hard truth.

For instance, the “God Damn America” sound-bite. He was saying that God doesn’t fail, but that governments fail. Then he goes on to give examples: Japanese Empire, Roman Empire, British Empire, the American Empire. They can do very bad things. So you do not Bless a government, in fact, when they do wrong, you Damn it. He goes on to explain a number of the things America has failed at quite terribly, which are indisputable. Watch the full clip of the sermon in the interview.

In his first sermon after 9/11, his words were right on the money. He said that violence begets violence, terrorism begets terrorism, and America has committed state terrorism on a number of occasions. I put his words from that sermon here, aren’t these things indisputable?

We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi’s home and killed his child. “Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock!” We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. 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! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians – not soldiers – people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America’s chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y’all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who’s trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised–

Bill Moyers Rev. Wright Interview

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