I received a killer pro-Obama direct mail piece from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) today that did not attack Hillary Clinton directly. It instead accused George Bush of having “bad judgment that led us into this reckless war” while praising Obama for voting against the Iraq War before it started. Yeah, I know – “read between the lines!” But in contrast to Hillary's slash and burn pieces, this one is staggeringly mild. The piece does a nifty guns to butter analysis, stating that if we hadn’t spent $8 billion on the war, we could have provided 1.2 million Hoosier children with healthcare, hired 46,000 public safety officers (does the SEIU know Indianapolis, or what?), and 65,000 elementary school teachers. Well done, SEIU!
Too bad Reverend Wright probably put Obama’s campaign in a coffin today. Just when you thought it was safe to look at a pulpit again. There is nothing white people hate more than an unrepentant, angry sounding black man. If you think I’m wrong, check some blogs today and comments posted on blogs. Look at the blatant mischaracterization of Reverend Wright’s words by the National Review. Wright didn’t “gush” about Farrakhan; he said nobody else could get 1,000,000 black people to Washington while ALSO denouncing his remarks about Judaism, a point conveniently omitted by NR.
I assure you that the vitriol will be POURING. I’ve often wondered about the psychology of why white people are so angry over this guy (or any black man who says America has not always lived up to its lofty Constitutional phraseology). I assure you that if they could somehow off-load the “white lens,” they might have seen a virtuoso performance last evening and today as well. Reverend Wright is highly-educated and clearly accomplished, though I felt his response on the question of whether the U.S. government created HIV was not particularly coherent.
But break that question down into sub-parts. First, CAN the U.S. create a deadly virus? Of course, we can. Second, would we have done so? Maybe not "created" one as much as "managed an existing one." We're supposed to believe that the U.S. government would somehow NOT investigate biological warfare if it could save American lives? As Reverend Wright noted, we investigated and then unveiled nuclear weapons for the same reason against Japan, didn't we? To preserve American lives that would be lost by an island invation? Now, could such a virus, if created, have been accidentally or even intentionally released? All white people say no, but ultimately, that’s a question of faith, isn’t it?
White people have the belief that our government would tell us if it had accidentally unleashed AIDS, and we cannot fathom that our government would intentionally try to kill anyone, at least not on a large scale. A lot of black people don’t have that faith, and for just cause.
The Tuskegee experiment, referred to by Reverend Wright, is the reason. Our government intentionally denied treatment to mostly illiterate black sharecroppers so it could watch syphilis spread up through 1972, when a press leak closed the study. Who knows how long it would have gone on without the media scrutiny. Is there really that much difference between withholding medicine and letting a disease out of the box?
Having said this, do I think it’s true the government created AIDS to kill black people in Africa. Absolutely not. But my thought process is practical on that. I believe if the U.S. had wanted to kill a specific group, it could do so more efficiently than it did here, when it wiped out a significant portion of the white, gay community before even really showing major numbers of infections in Africa. But do I understand, looking at our American history, why others might think so? Absolutely.
All the white people reading this right now, go ask your “best friend who is black” about the AIDS question and about Reverend Wright. Prepare to see the attitudinal chasm that still exists in this country between races.
4 comments:
I've got to assume that Rev. Wright simply doesn't want Obama to win. While I personally have no problems with the Rev, surely he understands that the average white voter isn't feeling him. If this is truly about him responding, as opposed to sabotage, why not wait until after May 6th? Seriously, what's another week. It's like someone has paid him to make the comments right before the freaking election here. *sigh*
I don't think it requires faith to believe that the U.S. government did not create AIDS or accidentally or intentionally release it into the human population. There has been a great deal of scientific study concerning the origins of AIDS by scientists both inside and outside the U.S. The WHO has found HIV in blood samples taken as part of a field study in Congo in the late 1950s. A paper published by the National Academy of Sciences last year suggests that HIV was brought to Haiti by Central African immigrants in the mid 1960s and that the virus was first introduced to the U.S. by an infected Haitian immigrant who entered the U.S. in 1969. Unless you believe that the world scientific community is part of some massive coverup, the belief that the virus was created or released by the U.S. government is ludicrous.
Mike,
Not to bust your bubble but the US Government had a huge bioweapons facility in Terre Haute that Mercke took over and used for "basic research" and manufacturing.
Oh, Indiana also had the world's largest stockpile of nerve gas just a few mile north at Newport.
Next time you go out by Eli Lilly's Greenfield labs try to find out what kind of research is going on there right now.
Aside from that, this conspiracy stuff is crazy isn't it?
I wonder why Rev.Wright decided to do Obama in. As they say "a promise made is a debt unpaid". We deal with drive by shootings in Indianapolis and Obama has to deal with drive by sermons.
James Carville is a genius!
anonymous-
Has the U.S. studied and developed bio-weapons? Absolutely. I simply stated that anyone who belives that the U.S. created or released HIV is crazy. The WHO, which is in no way controlled by the U.S. government, has found HIV in Congo in the late 1950s. HIV's presence in the human poulation probably dates to at least the 1930s and most likely started in Africa. Unless you think Herbert Hoover was ordering germ warfare experiments, the U.S. did not create HIV.
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