Our resident scholar/theologian/cultural commentator himself – Rev. C. Solomon has just released a tribute to Dr. Jeremiah Wright. Here’s a piece of it:

The Wright Reverend ought to be America’s man of the year! And even though his presence is not welcome at the Democratic Convention in Colorado, he is a substantial part of the reason for America’s profound new hope, for it is he who gets much of the credit for producing Senator Obama and family. If only more individuals in the nation, particularly its former and current leaders had been shaped at Trinity United in Chicago! READ MORE

Hard-hitting Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report brings the FIRE again with his latest piece entitled, “The Age of Katrina – Not Obama.” Take a sip…

The more delusional Obama supporters behave as if “their candidate’s speech on Thursday will herald a crack in time, after which posterity will speak of Before-Obama (BO) and After-Obama (AO) eras, and the transcendental Age of Obama.” They draw straight lines from Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech to Obama’s nomination acceptance oration. However, the event that far more accurately defines the age is Katrina, the unfolding catastrophe that descended on New Orleans three years ago, this week. Katrina is “the most dramatic manifestation of an implacable racism coiled deeply in the ruling structures of American society, primed to remove concentrations of Blacks from places of value.” READ MORE

Then there’s the Chicken Bones Journal – a great online resource for independent African perspectives on world views. (They need your financial support by the way.) Check out this piece I found there. It’s a letter of support for Cynthia McKinney from the President of the Socialist Party of South Africa (Azania)!

To Sister Cynthia McKinney:

We were particularly and greatly thrilled by your nomination as the presidential candidate of the Power to the People Committee and also that of your vice presidential candidate, Sister Rosa Clemente. These are indeed critical times for the United States but much so for the world and most particularly Africa and its people. We are excited and also support the endorsement of this nomination because of how we have come to know you, Sister Cynthia McKinney, and what you stand for.

The people of Africa and Azania, better known as South Africa, are greatly heartened by the fact that it is not in your character and style to keep quiet or turn a blind eye to the challenges that face you. You have consciously taken sides a long time ago and have been outspoken about countries such as Zimbabwe long before other people discovered where they were on the world map. READ MORE

And Renita Weems asks the question, “What’s wrong with being Nappy and Happy?” In this thought provoking commentary, Weems, highlights the Obama girls to raise the question of why Black women perm their hair. Is perming one’s hair a sign of self-hate? Take a sip…

I guess there’s no place in the White House for little black girls with nappy hair, huh? I know many of you can’t tolerate any criticism of the Obamas. And I’m not criticizing the Obamas. Not really. I’m raising a question about a black girl’s hair. And public perception. We’ve talked about this topic before when it was Michelle Obama. You can be sure that when this month’s issue of Essence Magazine arrived in the mail with Malia (10) and Sasha Obama (7) with hair straightened and curled around their shoulders, some black mother lost a battle with her ten year old about not straightening her (just yet). Why do we perm or straighten our daughters’ hair at such a young age?
What other ethnic group does this to their children? READ MORE

Ok – that’s enough for now. I’ll share more great blogs a little later this week.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama has selected Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, according to his official Web site and a text message the campaign sent to supporters on Saturday.

“Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee,” the text message, sent at around 3 a.m. ET, said.

“Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois — the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago,” Obama said in an e-mail sent to supporters Saturday morning.

“I’m excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can’t do this alone,” he wrote. ” We need your help to keep building this movement for change.”

Before the text messages were distributed, multiple Democratic sources confirmed to CNN early Saturday that Obama wanted the Delaware senator as his vice president.

On Friday, CNN learned three Democrats who had been considered contenders for the No. 2 spot, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, had been ruled out.

Biden was long considered a possible choice for vice president, but the buzz surrounding him intensified after he returned earlier this week from a two-day trip to the Republic of Georgia after Russian troops invaded.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, brings years of experience that could help counter GOP arguments that an Obama administration would be inexperienced on foreign policy.

Sen. John McCain’s campaign quickly reacted to word that Biden would be Obama’s running mate, calling attention to Biden’s past comments about Obama’s experience.

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden,” McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said in a written statement.

“Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be president.”

In a debate during the Democratic primary contest, Biden raised questions about Obama’s foreign policy experience.

“Who among us is going to be able on day one to step in an end the war? Who among us understands what to do about Pakistan? Who among us is going to pick up the phone and immediately interface with Putin and tell him to lay off Georgia because Saakashvili is in real trouble. Who among us knows what they’re doing? I have 35 years of experience,” Biden said.

During another debate, moderator George Stephanopoulos referred to some of Biden’s comments on Obama.

“You were asked, ‘Is he ready?’ You said, ‘I think he can be ready, but right now, I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training,’” Stephanopoulos said.

“I think I stand by that statement,” Biden replied.

Biden, in a July interview, said he would choose Obama’s judgment over John McCain’s war record and foreign policy experience.

“But 20 years of experience that has not been very solid in terms of projecting what was going to happen just doesn’t make you a better commander-in-chief,” Biden said. “We don’t need as a commander-in-chief a war hero. John’s a war hero. We need someone with some wisdom.”

Biden abandoned his own White House run after a poor showing in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. He also ran for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out after charges of plagiarism in a stump speech.

The 65-year-old was first elected to the Senate in 1972. Shortly afterwards, his first wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. He considered resigning, but decided to continue with his political career.

Biden is currently serving out his sixth term, making him Delaware’s longest-serving senator.

Biden is married and has three children. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and got a law degree from Syracuse.

In 1988, Biden suffered an aneurysm and nearly died but has recovered fully.

One of Biden’s grandfathers was a Pennsylvania state senator, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

Biden will make his first big speech as the vice-presidential candidate on Wednesday, August 27 — the third night of the Democratic convention.

The American Electoral Charade (3:43)

Obama and the New World Order
by Rev. C. Solomon

I have been discoursing with purported members of Senator Obama’s political inner-circle. These individuals cannot see any conflict between Tavis Smiley’s outrage given that Senator Obama attended and spoke so gallantly (to defend Israel) at this Jewish conference, when on the other hand he snubbed the State of the Black Union Conference.

Many black Americans do not see a conflict between Obama’s politics as usual and his pledge to continue America’s venal and unbalanced support of Israel in deference to balancing the scales between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah…! Some Americans have been duped into believing that Obama is simply playing possum, but once he gets elected Superman with his unfurled cape streaming in the wind is going to spring into action.

Folks, in my opinion, the reason that the USA is having so much turmoil and trouble with respect to Middle-Eastern and Near-Eastern nations, among other things, is its unfair and unbalanced support towards Israel against not only Hamas and Hezbollah but against other nations within close proximity like Syria, Iran…, and other nations that are at a greater distance!

America has pledged to destroy itself and its standing in the world right along with its 51st state, Israel. And even though American Christians have biblically inspired and romantic feelings toward the Israel of antiquity, the Israel of today was formulated, created and populated as a result of actions that took place in the UN in 1947/48. Much like it is within American leadership circles, many within Israel’s leadership ranks are nothing more than ungod-like natural born killers.

The Palestinian (Arab and Muslim Semitic people) were summarily evicted from their homelands and their homes, neighborhoods…., their homelands were turned over to the mixed European Jewish Diaspora who returned to Israel from European nations following WWII. When you hear Arabs and Muslims say that Israel does not have a right to exist, they base their opinions on the actions that were decided in the U.N. in 1947/48, having been pushed particularly by Great Britain, the USA and a few other nations. A nearly equal amount of nations abstained from the western backed insouciant injustice that took place in the United Nations in 1947/48.

The colonial powers also considered repatriating black Americans to Panama and the Jews to African Ghana at one time, and we are all aware of how the colonial powers sub-divided Canada. That Senator Obama has made it clear that he will continue politics as usual does not bode well for Israel’s neighboring countries, for Cuba, for Nicaragua, the DPRK…; and he has already confirmed my feelings that voting for him to be President of the USA would summarily result in repeating the mistakes of the past!

As some fair-minded Americans have recognized, America’s hegemonic policies around the world have been wrong in the past, and they are wrong today – even if they are supported by Christian ministers who have rejected the roadmap for peace in the M-E, e.g., Robertson, Hagee, the late Falwell, Parsley and about 300,000 other American ministers. These individuals have an agenda, and it has nothing to do with true biblical eschatology.

It takes courage to stand up for right and to fight for truth and justice. I’ve said it before and others are beginning to see it that when it comes to matters that truly matter to minorities and 3-rd world people, Obama has simply retreated – he has been muted. I go on record as saying that I believe that Senator Obama will accomplish just about as much in America and the world, as the two successive black Presidents in a nation whose citizens are 95% black, South Africa, have accomplished for the masses – that is if Senator Obama were to prevail and become President.

It has been my hope that whoever would become President of the USA next, would set politics aside and right the wrongs of an American colonial and hegemonic past and present – that Presidential aspirant has not appeared on the scenes yet!

Just as God has planned the establishment of a new world order in order to resolve the world’s problems; to the extent that many in the crop of the world’s 3-rd world nations, that have been held in tow in their weakened status (mostly as a result of actions by Great Britain going back to the Treaty at Versailles and for the past 60 years by the US), a change of American foreign and domestic white supremacist policies, as well as a new world order must be established.

Neither Senator Obama nor his youthful talib inner-circle, seem to grasp the need for revolutionary change, they talk a good game, but that’s about it. The USA must begin to act in accordance with the rule of divine and international law.

Is Reverend Solomon against Obama as some have said? Is Reverend Solomon an anti-Semite? Answer, Reverend Solomon is for right and for social justice for all nations and people of the world. I will not support any person, black or white, who will support or enforce the injustices of the past of present, in this case American injustice.

With respect to being anti-Semite, Arabs are Semitic people too, and if I am anti-Semitic so was the Apostle Paul who wrote in Romans 10, that among other things that Israel has left the righteousness of God and gone about to establish its own righteousness. God had to judge Israel on many occasions for its injustices, which many times resulted from Israel being evicted from Palestine. That America continues to bolster Israeli injustice speaks to the flawed and deep-seated unjust policies in the USA!

It is amazing to me, but should not be, that America has continued to support secularist leaders in Israel over religious Muslims and Arabs of the world. Obama has capitulated already on many occasions. In order to become President of the USA, he has already retreated from standing up for world-wide justice and freedom for all people! This young whelp is not what the world needs right now, he lacks courage, vision or substance!

Whenever America and any of its leaders begin to practice true justice and to adhere to the rule of law itself and themselves, America, a nascent 200 year old nation, will demand the same from Israel, and level the playing field towards other nations. We don’t have much time to do so, another Super-Power is emerging that will soon place its imprint on the world!

This sermon got Father Mike removed from his church – the Faith Community of St. Sabina. To their credit, the St. Sabina family is standing with their pastor. Mary Mitchell writes an interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times about this situation pointing out that Cardinal Francis George moved slow to remove a pedophile priest, but with great haste pushed Father Mike to the side!

Black preachers agree to disagree
Area pastors react differently to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. scandal

By Kelly Brewington
Sun reporter
May 1, 2008

The Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. considers the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. to be a tremendous pastor and a brilliant theologian. But sitting in the audience of the National Press Club in Washington this week, Hathaway found himself wincing at some of the remarks by Sen. Barack Obama’s embattled former pastor.

“When Jeremiah Wright says an attack on him is ‘an attack on the black church,’ that’s kind of stretching things,” said Hathaway, pastor of Baltimore’s Union Baptist Church. “I think it’s potentially dangerous.”

He is not the only one who thought so.

On Tuesday, Obama condemned Wright’s remarks, characterizing them as disrespectful, offensive and not accurately portraying the perspective of black churches.

Wright’s plunge back into the national spotlight – in which he has defended his fiery remarks, praised the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan and accused the media of distorting his words – has sparked an intense reaction in Baltimore’s black faith community. Some pastors assert that Wright is not the spokesman of the black religious tradition – one as diverse as the black community itself.

Others have defended Wright’s remarks as rooted in a rich history of black ministers using the pulpit to challenge injustices. They fear that the Wright backlash has overshadowed the black churches’ history, value and good deeds.

“Many of us pastors are pained,” said the Rev. Johnny Golden, pastor of New Unity Church Ministries in Baltimore and president-elect of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. “We see a lot of what he is saying and we understand it, but his comments have wounded the opportunity of Mr. Obama to make gains and opportunity for America to embrace its ideals.”

Wright, who served as Obama’s spiritual mentor when Wright was pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, found himself at the center of a political firestorm last month when portions of his sermons over the years began circulating in media reports.

Video clips show Wright alleging that the federal government “lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color,” and asserting that the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks revealed that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” Obama then denounced the remarks, describing his relationship with Wright in the context of the nation’s complex racial history.

The controversy re-emerged this week after the airing of a PBS interview with Wright, the pastor’s speech to the NAACP in Detroit and a raucus appearance before supporters at the press club.

Golden said Wright’s comments fail to reflect the diversity of black churches, and in doing so, the black community at large. “Having someone who speaks for the group in some monolithic way is offensive to many,” he said.

But the Rev. Marshall F. Prentice, pastor of Zion Baptist Church, said he has been troubled by the criticism of Wright.

“To attack any pastor for what he says from the pulpit is an attack on all pastors,” he said. “Whatever we say on a given Sunday, we truly believe is given to us by the inspiration of God.”

The Rev. John L. Carter, pastor of Ark Church on East North Avenue, said that like Obama, he was saddened by Wright’s most recent display.

“As much as I believe what he said is the truth, I don’t believe that this nation and even the world over is ready to take a penetrating blow of reality at this point,” he said.

Even so, Carter and others blamed the media storm, saying much of the coverage relies on sound bites that lack context.

“The media has to take some responsibility for portraying him as our leader,” he said. “He’s a friend, he’s a member of the African-American family, but he’s not the one leader.”

Pastors such as the Rev. William C. Calhoun Sr., pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, said critics’ assault on Wright smears all black preachers.

“The man is not called to be politically savvy, or politically astute or acceptable to politicians – he is called by the Lord,” he said. “Certainly the black church is not monolithic, but he represents enough of us that we can agree with what he does.”

Calhoun said he thinks that political operatives intent on derailing Obama’s presidential campaign are behind the Wright fiasco, using the pastor to detract from the issues.

“What does Wright have to do with the war in Iraq, with health care, with unemployment and with the recession?” he said. “It is reprehensible and ungodly to bring this pastor under attack in order to destroy the campaign of Barack Obama.”

The Rev. Frank M. Reid III, pastor of Bethel AME Church, has been a friend of Wright’s for years and co-authored a book with him on the Million Man March. The pair have preached together, with Wright coming to Baltimore to deliver sermons.

Reid said he fears the backlash has overshadowed the work of Wright’s church, including 70 ministries devoted to such activities as counseling prisoners, gang members and people with HIV.

“Dr. Wright represents a prophetic voice in the black community and in the community as a whole,” he said. “He is a voice who has been listened to, he has received numerous honors from seminaries across the board.”

Reid said those who find Wright’s words offensive might not be aware of the context.

“Certainly, all black churches do not think that the American government created AIDS to kill black people, but all black people also know that the Tuskegee Experiment was real,” he said.

In the Tuskegee study, researchers for the U.S. Public Health Service allowed syphilis in black men in Alabama to go untreated for more than 40 years.

Black liberation theology, which shaped Wright’s ministry, is more common in black churches than many in the mainstream realize, Reid said.

The doctrine is rooted in the foundation of the black church, later popularized in the 1960s by theologian James H. Cone, said Anthony B. Pinn, professor of religious studies at Rice University.

“With the first development of independent black institutions came this strong tradition of social activism,” Reid said.

Not all black churches follow this “social gospel,” Pinn said. The “black church” is a broad spectrum of traditions.

Hathaway, of Union Baptist Church, said Wright’s remarks Monday have placed a spotlight on black religious traditions, as well as the nation’s racial divide.

“I hope we take this opportunity to have a dialogue in our local communities,” he said. “We all know Sunday morning 11 a.m. is the most segregated time in America. What do we do Monday through Saturday to create more collaboration?”

Tuesday I watched youtube videos of Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s presentation at the National Press Club kicking off the Legislative Days of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Pastor’s Conference. After watching them and Wright’s presentation live on CNN Sunday night at the Detroit NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, I must say that he did a fantastic job of carefully explaining the particulars of Black Liberation Theology and the prophetic tradition in America. I especially appreciated his NAACP presentation Sunday night where he spoke masterfully about differences being just that – differences, not deficiencies. For the past few days, White America has been exposed to a fabric of Black Religious Life that it rarely, if ever, sees. As Dr. Wright said, the Black Church is much like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man – mainstream culture is trained not to see it and when glimpses of it appear, the conclusion is that it is something backward, loud, and uncouth.

While I’m sure that White America brought its own biases to Wright’s presentation (mainly because of corporate-controlled fascist media’s mission to control and shape the thoughts of the masses), those who came with an open mind saw a different (not deficient) line of thought, life, and belief that all too often flows in the undercurrent of mainstream America.

While I agree with others who have expressed appreciation of Wright’s words, it’s interesting to see how, White America aside, some African Americans are expressing radically different sentiments about the Reverend’s presentation.

Errol Louis from the New York Daily News said Wright, “couldn’t have done more damage to Barack Obama’s campaign if he had tried.”

Bob Herbert from the New York Times said, “The Reverend Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Sunday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him.”

Blogger AJ From The A Spot said in a mass email, “Barack Obama is trying to get into the White House and here comes the Rev. Wright Ego Reality Show Season II.” Going on to call Wright smug and self-righteous.

Finally, Eugene Robinson from The Washington Post said, “I’ve had it with Rev. Wright” and refutes the thinking that Wright is representative of the African American Church experience calling him, “one twig of one branch of a very large tree.” Robinson goes on to say that Wright threw Obama under the bus and that it’s time for the presidential candidate to return the favor.

Obama must have gotten the memo.

In a press conference yesterday, Obama said he is outraged by Wright’s comments and saddened by the “spectacle.” Calling Wright’s words a “bunch of rants not grounded in truth”, Obama more than just “distanced” himself, Obama flatly denounced and divorced himself from Wright saying that their relationship will likely never be the same.

Many are saying the timing of Wright’s “media tour” is wrong and that the Reverend should have waited to respond until Barack had the democratic nomination securely in hand or better yet until he walked into the White House. I tend to disagree. To this point, beyond the symbolic, Barack Obama has not shown a pattern of speaking to and standing on issues that are of central concern to Black Americans. (My boy “E-double” said over the weekend that Dennis Kucinich was more vocal to Black concerns that Obama!) In fact, in certain episodes he has shown his willingness to sacrifice Black folk while in hot pursuit of the nomination. He has, as this article explains, attempted to show himself as “race neutral” – a politician who understands the plight of everyone, but glosses over Black grievances racing to the Unity Circle to lead the crowd in singing “Kum Ba Ya”…oh sorry – I mean “Come By Here.”

So does that mean that Black America has to hang its “Blackness” up in the closet until he wins the Democratic nomination? Does that mean that we have to adjust our Blackness according to which state’s primary Obama is trying to win at the moment? Does that mean that we have to be nicely assimilated Negroes who appreciate the travel arrangements of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade arranged by our good Christian White Brothers and Sisters?

I’m sorry. I proudly voted for the Brother in the Maryland Primary and if he wins the democratic nomination….will I support him?…most likely, but it is becoming more and more apparent to me that Barack Obama is dancing along a dangerous line of disloyalty to the one national demographic that has overwhelmingly given him our vote. In Philadelphia, he said during his “race speech” that he could no more disown Jeremiah Wright than he could the Black Community. He said that Wright, the man who brought him to Christ, married him, and baptized his children, was like family to him.

Well, Monday you disowned FAMILY, Mr. Obama to keep your campaign alive. Are we – your extended Black Family next?

Our reporter, Adrienne Hall asked four questions:
1. Who do you support and why?

2. What issues are important to you in your decision to support the candidate?

3. Do you think the (mainstream)media has been doing a good (fair) job in covering the candidates and the issues?

4. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I thought these questions were fair and gave each side to present their case. The interesting thing that came across is that a majority of Hillary Clinton supporters wanted to know the questions in advance and where was this going to air and why where we there? Of course, you know where I am going—the race card. Yes, our crew was all black and one of our workers had a Barack shirt on at first, but I intentionally asked him to wear another one so people wouldn’t feel the bias. Does every African-America support Obama? No—we have evidence here when we interviewed Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio. (see photo)

The interesting part was that most of the Obama supporters both white and black didn’t ask for the details of questions at all. Is there really a racial divide in our Democratic party and we are just too scared to talk about it—that is another blog post in itself, so I digress.

For those of you who are skeptical, I am looking to partner with a another production company out of Charlotte, North Carolina (who happens to have an all white crew) and they will ask the same questions and represent myurbanreport.com during the May 6 primary in North Carolina.

Chip Dizárd is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Absolute Presence, a web site development firm that began in 2002. He has worked on many diverse projects and clients which include church and ministry web sites, political campaign, business and most recently in May of 2007 his firm designed and implemented the official web site of the City of Baltimore. Visit Absolute Presence today! (He’s also a blogger.)

My Vote’s for Obama (if I could vote) …
by Michael Moore

April 21st, 2008

Friends,

I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn’t get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don’t give a rat’s a** whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there’s a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word “Democratic” next to the candidate’s name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name under the Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple.

Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can’t win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry “Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.

But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come — but it won’t be you. We’ll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn’t ready, or he’s voted wrong on this or that. But that’s looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what’s going on is bigger than him at this point, and that’s a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, ‘Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?’ That’s a damn good question. In November of ’06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I’ll tell you why. Because I can’t stand one more friggin’ minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I’m almost at the point where I don’t care if the Democrats don’t have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain’t “Bush” and the word “Republican” is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that’s good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That’s why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters — that big “D” on the ballot.

Don’t get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It’s foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that’ll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, “Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for ‘spiritual counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”

But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That’s why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That’s why he’ll take us down a more decent path. That’s why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is… ‘can he win? Can he win in November?’ In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called
the Straight Talk Express. We know it’s possible to hear the words “President McCain” on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She’s counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only “three fifths” human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore

The media frenzy over the remarks of Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, raise critical challenge to the prophetic role and voice of the black church. These “incendiary” remarks have set off a firestorm in the media, exposing the deep divide that exists on Sundays – America’s most segregated hour of the week. This controversy serves as a stark reminder that the problem of the color line that still divides the U.S. and its churches. This often misguided debate obscures the rich and necessary prophetic role of the black church. Most coverage fails to capture the competing narratives and self-definitions of the U.S. that coexist depending on one’s race and social location. While I’m uncomfortable with some of Dr. Wright’s overly provocative rhetoric, and disagree with some of his claims (like his suggestion that AIDS was a creation of the U.S. government), I still vehemently defend the prophetic tradition that Rev. Wright has advanced over the course of 36 years of ministry. I agree with the Rev. Otis Moss III, the new Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, that we do a grave disservice by boiling down over 207,000 minutes of Dr. Wright’s preaching into a handful of 30-second sound bites, most taken out of context.

Many may be wondering what I mean by prophetic voice and asking why it is so critical for the full vocation of the church and the health of our democracy. Prophets foretell the future in the name of God, speaking truth to power against injustice while calling us back to God’s word and kingdom. According to Obery Hendricks, “prophetic speech is characterized by an overwhelming sense of an encounter with God and a message of moral and political judgment that a prophet feels divinely compelled to proclaim … to change social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life”. Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and so many other biblical prophets did not mince words or shy away from controversy. Like these prophets, prophetic preachers are often misunderstood, persecuted, and sometimes even killed for their words. Jesus continues this long and rich tradition when he says in Matthew 23:3, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” This is also exemplified in the gospel of Luke when he overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple just after riding a donkey into Jerusalem on the Palm Sunday that the church just commemorated.

Arguably, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. embodied the best of the black prophetic tradition as one who courageously pronounced judgment against America for the sin of racism and the cancer of Jim Crow segregation. But King also called on America become the beloved community, ensuring that God’s demands for dignity and justice and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution were afforded to all Americans. King’s life was cut tragically short exactly 40 years ago in April because of his prophetic witness – describing the war in Vietnam as a “demonic suction tube,” calling the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, and forewarning to striking sanitation workers in Memphis that like Dives in the parable of Lazarus, “America is going to hell if we don’t use her vast resources to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children have the basic necessities of life.” Our nation is quick to romanticize the Dr. King of Montgomery and Selma, but often ignores the King of Memphis that demanded a living wage, or the King of Riverside Church who declared silence around the Vietnam War as betrayal.

A preacher’s job sometimes requires prodding and provoking a congregation, shining a light on some of our most uncomfortable realities and hard-to-accept truths. I find it hard to believe that anyone could attend a church for years and never take issue with at least some of the things that were said by even the most respected and beloved pastor. Black prophetic preaching often criticizes America for its transgressions, contradictions, and hypocrisy, but at its best does this out of a deep and abiding belief in God’s justice and love for what America could become if it lived out the full promise of her ideals. When the prophetic tradition holds up a mirror to our nation’s misdeeds and imperfections, it stands tall with the biblical prophets of old. This is good company to keep indeed.

Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.