The "Progressive's" defense of Jeremiah Wright

I have seen some blogs on the left side of town defend Mr. Wright on the basis of other leaders whose critical approach to the USA one might argue is a path to the improvement of America.

Foremost among these has been Frederick Douglass.

The usual defense runs around this very famous speech. Worth reading. Very worth reading.

In it Douglass properly rants :

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

The comparison is to Wright's preached comment

Government "wants us to sing 'God Bless America' " despite treating black people as second-class citizens. "No, no, no," Mr Wright said, "God damn America!"

That speech was in 1852, the same year Uncle Tom's Cabin was released, while american men and women were slaves.

Since that speech, the great sin was washed away, as John Brown put it minutes before he was hung, by the blood of 800,000 americans, most of whom died for the purpose of the slaves' freedom, like it or not.

Since that sin, good men and women like Goodman and Schwerner have died just to get equality at the voting booth FOR OTHERS of a different color.

Since that sin affirmative action has been so effective that successful products of it (such as Michelle Obama), feel their accomplishments TAINTED by it (as any professionally excellent person ought)

Jeremiah Wright, in his disgusting, and historically stupid words about the tiniest and most oppressed people in the HISTORY of the planet makes plain his vast difference from a truly great human and leader like Douglass.

Jeremiah Wright, in his historically and factually IGNORANT words about Hiroshima and Nagasaki makes plain his distaste for the sacrifice of those American families of the QUARTER MILLION KILLED IN THE SERVICE at that time.

Jeremiah Wright displays for all his hatred, not for the sins of the few ..but the other groups he has contempt for.

It is this which makes Obama's personal defense of him, a critical reminder of his GALACTICALLY INCREDIBLE LACK of judgment.

And it is this which makes any comparison between the great Douglass and needlessly hateful and frankly racist Wright a farce.

Fredrick Douglass today might well find himself beside men like Bill Cosby.

I find it very hard to envision him next to those who purvey hate of other races, and religions as a means to ANY END worthy of reaching.

Whatever spiritual gain Sen Obama benefited from at the Trinity United Church, both he and now this nation have lost far more