blogger interrupted

I will not expect outright bigots, the likes of Tom Blumer, Alo Konsen, Ralph King, Matt Naugle, or even a non-bigot like Nixguy who gives his bigot friends quarter, to bother to watch the entire interview which PBS aired tonight between Bill Moyers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  Nothing on earth can get such small minded agneda driven people to pay any attention to the actual facts.  

So consider this post my personal contribution to the elimination of their ignorance, an ignorance I am sure they would rather wallow in than actually learn facts.

The full interview (required viewing for anyone who ever dares to comment on this man again) is a testimony to the kind of great American our country can produce, despite its many flaws, despite the deeply shameful chapters of our history that we all struggle with today.  Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a great American, and watching this interview, I’ve learned two things I didn’t know about Barack Obama.

First, I can see why Barack would be drawn to such a man.  He is an intellectual giant.  This comes through even in this short hour.  He can quote scripture, within the context of our own American story, so effortlessly, it is as if he is hardwired to the strains of human history that produced both religion, and America.  I doubt that either Tom Blumer, or any one of his many twins of idiocy, have ever known the Bible they thump so loudly as well as Rev. Wright does, or ever will.

Second, if this is the man that brought Barack Obama to Jesus, then Barack’s Christianity is far stronger than mine.  The level of reason with which Rev. Wright achieves spiritual inspiration is precisely the entry into Christianity that thinking people need.  We need to know that Christ is not some dream, or balm, or mere tradition.  We need to reason our way to it, so that our resulting belief is the more stronger.  

I will not link to the existing YouTubes, as they only address the hot button quotes that the media will want.  But I will quote the transcript here, at length, in far greater length than Tom Blumer has quoted the many church bulletins which he has spent months waving in our faces as if he’s found the Pentagon papers.

On the use of his church’s bulletins, which Blumer wallows in.

BILL MOYERS: What can you tell me about what’s happened at the church since this controversy broke?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, the church members are very upset. Because they know it’s a lie, the things that are being broadcast. Church members have been very supportive. The church members have been upset by behavior of some of the media;

picking up church bulletins to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of the sick and shut-in, calling them to try to get stories. One lady they called in hospice.

My members are very upset about that, our members are very upset about that. Our members are very upset about that. Our members know that this is what the media is doing. And our members know they’re only doing it because of the political campaign. What have we gotten into here? People threatening, you know, Christians, some of ‘em, threatening us, quoting scripture and telling us how they’re going to wipe us off the face of the earth in the name of Jesus

BILL MOYERS: There had been death threats?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, there have. At, both on myself and on Pastor Moss, and bomb threats at the church. 

On his service to America, which Blumer ignores completely, and which exceeds that of fellow bigot Alo Konsen, who never had the life of the president in his hands.

BILL MOYERS: He served six years in the military: two as a marine, and four in the Navy as a cardiopulmonary technician. That’s where our paths crossed for the only time.

That’s Jeremiah Wright, behind the I.V. pole, monitoring President Lyndon Johnson’s heart as he was recovering from gall bladder surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And right behind him is a very young me. I was the President’s Press Secretary.

REVEREND WRIGHT: As you know, the President had to be operated on and out of surgery by 9:00 when the stock market opened. And talking and wide awake. So, we scrubbed in, like, 3:00 in the morning.

When he awakened, unlike other patients, you did not move him to recovery. You didn’t move him to ICU. They kept him right there for security reasons. Secret Service all around, there was secret service in the whole operating suite and nobody else allowed in the operating suite except Secret Service.

So, after about an hour and a half, I went to get some coffee. And as I was coming back from the lounge where the coffee was, going back to monitor, I saw the guys talkin’ into their wristwatches and I was nodding, speaking to them. So, I turn to go into the room to check the pace. And secret service guys standing there grabbed me, knocked the coffee outta my hand, burned me with the hot coffee, twisted my arm up behind my neck and screams into his phone, “I got him.” And I was, “Got him?” And I’m screamin’ in pain. And my assistant comes running out of the booth. He sees me jacked up and he starts laughing. I said, “Joe, don’t laugh. Tell him who I am.” And he said, “He’s been here all morning.”

BILL MOYERS: Standing above the President.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Guy looked at me, pulled my mask up over face, “Oh, yeah.” And that was it. 

On Black Liberation Theology, which the bigot Blumer appears to think is some kind of Nazism.

BILL MOYERS: Lots of controversy about black liberation theology. As I understand it, black liberation theology reads the bible through the experience of people who have suffered, and who then are able to say to themselves that we read the bible differently, because we have struggled, than those do who have not struggled. Is that a fair bumper sticker of liberation theology?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think that’s a fair bumper sticker. I think that the terms “liberation theology” or “black liberation theology” cause more problems and red flags for people who don’t understand it.

BILL MOYERS: When I hear the word “black liberation theology” being the interpretation of scripture from the oppressed, I think well, that’s the Jewish story–

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly, exactly. From Genesis to Revelation. These are people who wrote the word of God that we honor and love under Egyptian oppression, Syrian oppression, Babylonian oppression, Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression. So that their understanding of what God is saying is very different from the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians. And that’s what prophetic theology of the African-American church is.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. But talk a little bit about that. The prophets loved Israel. But they hated the waywardness of Israel. And they were calling Israel out of love back to justice, not damning–

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: Not damning Israel. Right?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Right. They were saying that God was– in fact, if you look at the damning, condemning, if you look at Deuteronomy, it talks about blessings and curses, how God doesn’t bless everything. God does not bless gang-bangers. God does not bless dope dealers. God does not bless young thugs that hit old women upside the head and snatch their purse. God does not bless that. God does not bless the killing of babies. God does not bless the killing of enemies. And when you look at blessings and curses out of that Hebrew tradition from the book of Deuteronomy, that’s what the prophets were saying, that God is not blessing this. God does not bless it- bless us. And when we’re calling them, the prophets call them to repentance and to come back to God. If my people who are called by my name, God says to Solomon, will humble themselves and pray, seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways. God says that wicked ways, not Jeremiah Wright, then will I hear from heaven. 

On the blues, which I’m sure fat pig bigot Naugle listens to, but probably thinks Pat Boone invented.

BILL MOYERS: What is it you said about suicide?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Blacks learn how to sing the blues rather than just giving up on life. A guy’s wife walks out on him with his best friend. And he’s crushed. So what does he say? Instead of going out and taking a gun and killing he sings a song. “I’m going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. I’m going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. “And when the locomotive comes I’m gonna pull my fool head back.” I’m not giving up life over this. That life goes on beyond this. Pain is just for a moment. This whole notion about what we’re going through is only a season. And this came to pass, didn’t come to stay. That’s what the blues do. And that’s what the music tradition does. That’s what the spirituals have done and that’s what the gospel music has done, historically, in our church. So, yeah, trying to keep that as an integral part of worship is crucial for us.

BILL MOYERS: So what blues are you singing right now?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Don’t know why they treat me so bad. I’m singing the sacred blues. The songs of our gospel tradition. That I’m so glad trouble don’t last always. That, what man meant for evil, God meant for good. That what–

BILL MOYERS: What man meant for evil God meant for good.

REVEREND WRIGHT: That’s a quote from Joseph, in the bible, the Book of Genesis. 

The rest of you need to watch the interview.  As for our Ohio rightysphere….I’m sure they never will.

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