Fortunately we don't have to go through this thought experiment to know the answer. We just have to look at how much (little) coverage Rev. Hagee and The Fellowship have received.

Ron, did you even read Ezra's post? His point exactly inverts yours: Hagee's opinions are nothing like Wright's, and there's a real question about whether the American people find the Hagee right wing critique of abortion and gay rights as objectionable as they seem to the Chomsky/blowback critique.

Additionally, Hagee is not McCain's pastor going back 20 years, and he does not figure into McCain's autobiography.

It's simply extraordinary that if you don't believe that "America is always and everywhere motivated by virtue," you are "far, far left." Any effort to understand politics in anything other than the crudest religious terms - we are good, they are evil - is automatically rejected as outside the mainstream of political debate.

Americans recoil from the Chomskyite critique

You mean the Prophetic critique. Not to say that Rev. Wright speaks with the same authority as the Prophets did (and perhaps only someone with that authority ought to speak the way Rev. Wright does), but how is the content of what he said really any more inflamatory than what the Prophets said about their own country of Biblical Israel? How is what he said any more inflamatory than Jesus saying that the prosperous are "cursed" (or perhaps more precisely, "damned")?

And yet millions of church-going, shul-going, mosque-going religious folks are outraged? Nu? Something tells me that they aren't really reading their Bibles ...

Ezra: That is a very good point. Given the Wright/Hagee (or, for that matter Wright/Falwell or Wright/Robertson) double-staadard, it's all too easy to assume that the key, or perhaps only, variable in the different treatment is race. I think that your thought experiment usefully isolates at least one other variable -- party affiliation. That is to say, the different treatment of Obama vis-a-vis a religious figure who makes statements that large numbers of people find objectionable is also chalked up to the fact that Obama is a Democrat. That's not the only other variable, though, even though it is overwhelmingly tempting to see this as yet another example of Republican Exceptionalism. The other key (not unrelated to republican Exceptionalism) is the patriotism card. If all Wright had said was that AIDS was the product of a government conspiracy, I doubt there would be so much hand-wringing and panty-knotting going on. No, Wright committed the apparently unpardonable thoughtcrime of saying "God damn America" (for a host of genuinely damnable acts, mind you) and suggesting that there may in fact be a connection between how this country's government acts on the world stage and the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01. I say this is not unrelated to republican Exceptionalism because right-wing religious figures are permitted to say quite outrageous things about national tragedies (e.g., Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on terrorist attacks, Robertson (again) and Hagee on cataaracts and hurricanos) with impunity. This truly is a double standard because, although they might not have said "God damn America," they made clear their belief that the behavior of Americans brought on the tragedies and thus that the tragedies were a form of retributive justice for our collective sins. It's just that in Wright's case, he had the misfortune of alluding to actual collective sins perpetrated in the name of the United States.

Sebastian, unlike Ron, hits the nail right on the head. Hagee has said that Katrina was punishment for New Orleans' licentiousness: that's coming from a similar place as "God Damn America" (though it's more like God is Damning America) but since he didn't say those magical "anti-American" words, he's not a big deal.

the more things dont change, the more they stay the same.

the omnipresent placards from the sixties:

"love it or leave it."

There's something we aren't admitting here which is that "far far left" isn't a synonym, really, for the class issues embedded in this. McCain *himself*--not hagee, not a surrogate--has just compared the entire US government to the mafia. Earmarks and government action itself is the product of a kind of organized crime syndicate which is by definition illegitimate. Not a peep from the press. The critique of the government and its works by an upper class, rich dude is A-ok with the press because the worst thing you can say about a democracy is that it might benefit the poor or the people. To take the opposite tack and criticize the government for being too powerful and too willing to use its power against poor and blacks? Now that is a crime against the status quo that must be squelched, pronto.

Hagee and the other white preachers are very, very, very careful to align their god with the status quo--their god condemns america and even attacks america through natural disasters and 9/11 but only to punish those who Hagee and the media have read out of the compact that is america: "leftists", liberals, lesbians, gays, blacks, poor people etc..etc...etc...

You can't begin to talk about what the preacher said without grasping that what the media hear is entirely defined by the relative class positions and implications of what the preacher is saying. Race has something to do with it because in most cases race defines the insider/outsider and high class/low class divide. But where black preachers confine themselves to ranting against homosexuality? No problem. And where white ministers have foughta gainst the power structure? The berrigans? dorothy day? William Sloane Coffin? they have been declared anathema.

aimai

Americans recoil from the Chomskyite critique

Some Americans strongly agree with this critique. Some Amerians somewhat agree. Some Amerians disagree but are sympathetically tolerant. Some Americans are indifferent. Some Americans are outraged.

The last group, even if a plurality, should not be granted perpetual, exclusive title to Authentic America.

Sebastian has it about right. Its the fact that Wright was the longtime preacher for a Democrat that makes this news that must be covered from each and every angle by our biased media. It is the fact that Wright is black that makes it a double whammy. Rightwingers eat up this sort of stuff and demand that the media cover it fully for Democrats and the media obliges. Add the race factor and you stir up the casual racism that infects much of white America and it really spins out of control. I think Obama has done a pretty good job of managing the situation, but Wright did him no favors with this latest tour.

If Obama were a Republican, there would be no story. Republican preachers can say anything, and there is no story.

I agree with you...it would be a different story. It would be an entirely different primary dynamic. If BO were white, and his white preacher was as (seemingly) unhinged, it would be unlikely he would be getting 93% of the AA vote and, hence, not be a serious contender anyway.

apm has a great point. But I challenge Ezra's simpleminded repitition of republican talking points. Most americans have not been exposed at all to the "chomskyite" critique of america and I daresay that if they were they would find themselves in a lot of agreement with it. For christ's sake read something other than health care coverage stuff, Ezra. The thing that scares the republicans the most is a popular populist critique of their authoritarian and imperialist policies. Chomsky isn't the easiest cuddliest guy to deliver the message and consquently his message gets ignored. But its a pretty reasonable message and jumps quite well with the realities "real" (read white workign class or farmer) americans are actually facing. Wright's anger and his knowledge of the hidden history of american racism and medical experimentation makes him easily demonized. But if he were white and evangelical and making the same critique with a bias towards democratic solutions? the republicans wouldn't be merely demonizing him, they'd be assasinating him. Because when white anger turns against the republicans, they've lost it all.

aimai

Imagine how powerful it would have been if Hillary, when Rev. Wright reemerged with his outrageous statements about AIDS and terrorism, had said, wait a minute, let's keep this in perspective; we know Barack Obama, and this is not what Barack Obama believes; I've known a lot of people in my life, too, and some of them believe crazy things too; let's keep this election on the critical issues we face, and not on distractions about what somebody you know said about something. It would have been a classy thing to do, it would have won her lots of respect, gone a long way to rebuilding the unity of the party that either Clinton or Obama is going to need in just a few more weeks, and might even have helped her politically. But, no.

You would think the last 7 years would have opened some eyes in America since Chomsky, Chalmers et al have basically been proven right and I actually think it has but you only see that on the blogs and places like digg. In the media driven discourse it's still anathema. America really needs a real left wing instead of just the far right and the center right you have now.

I'd posit that if Obama wasn't black, nobody would have even bothered looking into his preacher. The reasons Kerry's priest or Bush's minister didn't get any attention isn't because they've never said anything insane. I'd bet anything that they have. Rather, it's because nobody bothered looking into it because it would have made most(white) people upset that their religion was being attacked. But going after a black preacher isn't the same, black religion is 'weird' to most white people. So it's ok.

But hey, some white people will go to great lengths to make any racial issue about anything but race. It's one of the biggest reasons why racism rarely ever gets addressed as anything but something that happened in the 50's.

It doesn't really have to be one or the other though.

I mean people can be pissed off at the guy BOTH because he's black and because he's a liberal.

I do think there's been some level of white privilege here. When you hear about/see idiots like Hagee, Robertson, Dobson, etc.. making their incendiary statements, they're always surrounded by the tokens of acceptance and legitimacy the media affords most political figures. Wright is presented in 2-second sound bites as he rants across the stage (a pretty clear evocation of standard "Angry Black Man" imagery).

Again, I think the standard "Left" critique also plays a big part. But race and "extreme ideologies" always go hand in hand, and often the very thing that makes an idea extreme and unacceptable is the fact that marginalized minority groups support it.

To echo others' comments, how disgusting to see the normally intelligent Ezra call "far, far left" the hardly radical idea that we're not always the good guys (do the good guys kill hundreds of thousands of people in illegal, inexcusable wars?) As long as anything that departs from outright jingoism can be dismissed in this way even by normally sensible observers, just so long will this country remain in the moral sewer it currently occupies.

For shame, Ezra.

Gee Anonymous, and you wonder why I call you a racist all the time.

Because getting a guaranteed 14% of the vote is definitely enough to win the nomination!

It isn't the critique of American foreign or domestic policy only, or primarily that bugs us about Wright. It's the identity politics, from which Obama has, from the very beginning tried to distance himself with his pitch about transcending race and being a unifier.

Continue with the thought experiment please. Imagine how it would have played if a white clergyman had claimed that black kids were right-brained learners, that blacks and whites were genetically wired to think differently or even had "different cultures." Or for some real fun, imagine that Hillary's spiritual advisor was a clergywoman who advocated goddess-worship and "women's way of knowing" or rattled on about white, western, male suppression of the eternally female.

It's the "politics of difference" that offends Americans. As a person of mixed race Obama was ideally positioned to repudiate identity politics. His affiliation with a church that self-consciously does black under the leadership of a pastor who preaches the importance of racial identity, racial culture and racial difference that offends Americans. Wright's interview with Moyers, at which he talked about racial identity, culture and difference in the soft and cuddly multiculturalist style would have turned off Americans just as much as his inflamatory remarks damning America if they had been watching.

Yeah, people like Baber prefer blacks to just shuffle along quietly so he doesn't have to notice they're there, saying nothing except perhaps the occasional "yes, massa".

critique of American imperialism, a dismissal of the idea that America is always and everywhere motivated by virtue, and explicit sympathy for the blowback hypothesis that suggests that though 9/11 was obviously unjust, it was also a predictable eventual consequence of our actions.
Sounds like Ron Paul. A conservative can get away with that.

Birds don't get off the ground with only one wing functional (as Mike suggests), and the nation has essentially always been without a left wing - particularly since Joe McCarthy, Dick Nixon and the early days of the cold war. The US left has consistently been depicted by the GOP and the media as 'the enemy within', and the Dem. party as its handmaiden. Before San Francisco Democrats we had ADA Liberals and ACLU card-carriers.

Rev. Dr. Wright is the re-incarnation of the J. Edgar Hoover-GOP view of "black radicals" like Martin Luther King: the union of racist hate by blacks and 'commie' leftism.

And guess what, Obama is being fit right into that slot of black danger and leftie (now Islamo-terrorist) enemies within - but this time aided and abetted by a ruthless candidate of the Dem. party (HRC).

To avoid the populist class-based political discussion, nothing works so well as a political tactic as to frame the matter as black-race danger and lefty pinkos/terrorists within.

So ya, the argument against Obama wouldn't be as strong regarding Wright if both were white, but in the real world they aren't white and the meme fits perfectly into a long historical pattern: watch out for the 'other'.

It's funny. A lot of liberal bloggers make the same arguments Chomsky always has, yet they do so from different origins and with occasionally different rhetoric and referents, and yet they still go through the authentication maneuver of condemning Chomsky.

What would have been funny would have been for Ezra & co. to have made the exact same sorts of principled arguments about foreign policy (that they put forth today) in the 1980s with regard to Central America or Southern Africa, and suddenly they would have found themselves lumped all together with the hate-America left.

Still, it's a good endorsement of the rational arguments of those such as Chomsky that even many of those who constantly aim to prove their Tru Amurkan bona fides by ritually denouncing him echo similarly rational arguments.

WTF is this "pastor for 20 years" and "married him" garbage? Who knows or cares what the political beliefs are of the person who married you? If it's Obama's church, it's his church, and the political beliefs of the pastor are of zero relevance whatsoever. They are not Obama's beliefs -- period. There is no real story here, and it's extremely disturbing to see someone like Ezra accept and adopt for himself right-wing (or currently short-sighted pro-Hillary/anti-Obama) framing. Some want to make it a story. That's the only question: can it be made into a story or not? It has been made into a story, but it is not a story. TKD above is more right-on than anything I've seen recently.

YOu guys have very short memories. Kerry was actually attacked for *not being catholic enough* and the proof was that he and his wife regularly attended mass at the Paulist Center in Boston. This liberal catholic church associated with the Paulist brothers was demonized without any particular reference to their actual speeches, preaching, or actions as somehow "not the right kind of catholic" just as Wright has been demonized as "not really christian."

How can Ezra and other commenters here--like Haber--pretend not to know that its not about black vs white, or "identity politics" and divisiveness against some kind of undifferentiated, noble, american ness but always about liberal vs authoritarian beliefs and practices. Haber seems to have missed out on the fact that right wing white preachers in fact have denounced african americans and gay americans and muslim americans as thinking differently, having different morals, being oversexed, being destructive, being the cause of death and disaster, etc...etc...etc... That's some serious identity politics for ya!

And, of course, Obama's attempt to bridge the divide and make himself a post partisan candidate can only make sense in a world full of such divisions--among which Wright and Hagee are naturally already existing features. Wright's speech doesn't call Obama's strategy into question, it just means that Obama has seen what typical american racial divisiveness breeds and has rejected it as a platform.

aimai

El Cid makes a great point about the "authentication maneuver of condemning Chomsky." I've seen Joe Klein do just that as well. I sometimes wonder if those condemning Chomsky are really familiar with his writings or are just doing their part in a ritual.

I think all of the ranting from the corporate media and the GOP shills exposes something about GOP politicians relationship with religion. Despite all of their claims to be led by Christ, blah blah - most of these folks actually don't attend a church, much less have a real spiritual guide like Obama claims Rev Wright was for him.
Bush, McCain and the rest of the repubs actually can't be slammed when Hagee, Dobson, Robertson, etc make racist, wacky statements. It is clear that they actually seek NO spiritual guidance from these preachers - their ministry is all about access to power and money.
Obama has revealed that he actually listens to Rev Wright and his church's teachings on "Christ-like" behavior. It's pretty clear that Bush and the rightwingnut preachers have a Bible with a few chapters on homosexuality, abortion, prayer in school and free market economies.

aimai gets this correct. It's about authoritarianism. Say what you want about Hagee, he has never condemned the actions of American authorities. Individual Americans, sure, but propose a war, and Hagee will be singing your praises.

There are no media kerfluffles when religious leaders speak out in service of and in fealty to power. When they do otherwise, they become "controversial."

...they still go through the authentication maneuver of condemning Chomsky.

It's almost Pavlonian among certain liberals. They want to establish their Reasonable Liberal credentials and the Repudiate Chomsky Maneuver serves that purpose. Eric Alterman does this all the time. For careerist purposes this makes sense- radical critique of US foreign policy used to condemn liberal pundits to the ghettoes of low circulation monthlies.

The Bush years have taken off the benign mask of US imperialism, so we might get a more honest debate about how we conduct ourselves globally. I have a feeling most Americans would rather have us focus on domestic problems, but if gas prices begin to seriously erode middle class living standards, then I'm afraid how the American lizard brain might react. Taking the oil from the wogs might be one response.

I agree with the basic thrust of TKD's post on how Senator Clinton, counterfactually, should have done the (W)right thing.

But to paraphrase TKD in a manner in which I am reasonably sure s/he would not approve – but I may be wrong:

"Imagine how powerful it would have been if Obama, when offered the opportunity to respond in the New Hampshire debate after Clinton had been importuned with the sophomoric question about why she felt she wasn't seen as likable [cf. Stephanopoulos' equally sophomoric asking of Obama in the Pennsylvania debate how he would compare his patriotism with Rev. Wright's], had said:

'Wait a minute. Let's keep this in perspective; I know Hillary Clinton both as a colleague in the Senate and as someone who has more than enough in the way of substantive credentials to be running for President of the United States. And to try to divert this debate from a discussion of the real problems America faces, and the important differences which frankly exist between my and Senator Clinton's proposed policies, does a grave disservice to the process we are engaged in. Let's drop the personality nonsense – which is a bit too redolent of sexism and misogyny -- and get back to the issues.'

"It would have been a classy thing to do, it would have won him lots of respect, gone a long way to maintaining the unity of the party that either Clinton or Obama would be needing in the general election, and arguably would have prevented the Hillary triumph in New Hampshire apparently fuelled in no small part by his snarkily inserted comment: "You're likable enough."

"Why Obama might have even won New Hampshire, rolled on to victory in South Carolina, and the whole process may then have been basically over after a trifecta in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

"Imagine."

And, no, two wrongs don't make a right, not even a Jeremiah Wright.

Race matters in this context because it negates a potential excuse that Obama could otherwise use -- the fact that if you want to join a mainstream black church in Chicago (or most other giant cities), you're probably going to get a healthy dose of black liberation theology. But Obama can't say that, because it only reinforces the belief in middle class white America that African-Americans are stupid/crazy and not fit to be president.

To use an analogy, my wife and I were married by a militantly feminist lesbian deacon in a very liberal high Protestant church in Chicago (actually, at the U of C -- probably about a 10 minute walk from where Barack and Michelle were married). I'm sure that she has some crazy ideas about different social issues; she may well have expressed some of these ideas in sermons. We both have moved from the area, but we still keep in touch with Christmas cards, etc. If I were ever pressed on her crazy ideas, I could easily just say something along the lines of: "Look, we were members of a [denomination] church in an academic community, in a very liberal [diocese/synod/whatever] no less. It's going to be pretty liberal, and the officiants are going to have some crazy views. But our choices were to either not be [members of the denomination] any more, or to continue going to the church that we both attended since we were toddlers and recognize that we were going to disagree with a lot of the views of the [pastor/priest/deacon/whatever]."

Barack can't say that, because to do so would be to emphasize his scary blackness to middle class white America.

I am impressed at the pushback people are displaying here at the reductive language of "chomskyite critique" and far, far left."

I would like to point out a few things.

First, ezra seems to incorrectly impart ayers politics with Chomsky's. While Ayers no doubt drew considerable currency from Chomsky's writings, I'm not familiar with Chomsky's work that supports domestic terrorism as means of liberation. This is a typical throw Chomsky under the bus move, whereby the author casually connects Chomsky to anything far left, whether he actually supports it or not.

Second, the term "chomskyite" is a little obnoxious. I know I may be dealing in semantics here, but every "liberal" that hates chomsky and wants to use his name as a means of distancing themselves from such "dangerous" material uses the term. Usually we add "ite" to political ideologies as a means of dismissing them. Hence, we refer to "trotskyites" rather than the preferred Trotskyist (I am not a follower of trotsky but its illustrative of the point). I know its political untenable to like Chomsky, you know, because his ideas are so dangerous, but is it necessary to disparage him in order to show how civilized one is.

On another note, I think your partially right about Rev Wright and race issue. While people certainly object to his blowback references (Something I might add has its genesis in the CIA, not with Chomsky), the fact that he is black guy wearing a dashiki-like outfit makes him that much scarier and un-American. Black people are fuckin scary.

A fairly obvious and not yet explicitly mentioned sidebar on why Chomsky's critique of American foreign policy could not be espoused by any mainstream politician, no matter how intellectually solid Chomsky's critique is.

(Indeed, I have yet to see a debate between Chomsky and anyone where it has not been painfully obvious that someone sent in the JV to compete against the Varsity.)

The elephant in the room?

Chomsky's critique is heavily freighted with a full scale – and principled – attack on expansionary Zionism.

The irony, of course, is that Chomsky plays better at the Hebrew University than at, say, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia (just examples, folks, just examples, and coming from a Yale and Columbia graduate). But along with race and Social Security, this is one of the, well, three in a triumvirate of third rail issues in American political discourse.

Actually, it is arguably more electric than the other two, because those at least get discussed, in however a distorted fashion, in the MSM.

Yeah. I don't know what I have to add here except to say that when Republicans denounce American government, they are not branded as unpatriotic. In fact embedded in the Republican mythology is that to be pro-American, one must denounce the interfering qualities of the state. (Example: Reagan's "Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.") I infer from this that to Republicans, America exists as something separate from government, and while we could have long debates about what this separate America actually is, you are much more likely to be assumed part of it if you are white, male, heterosexual, and traditionally Christian. Yes, this is identity politics, but it's just true that if an old, white, married, Christian guy compares American government to thugs, his patriotism is enhanced, not questioned. I can see Ezra's point that if Obama and Wright were white, we'd still be focusing on various controversies, but I think he misses the greater point that a Black man running for President is going to have to prove his Americanness over and over again. I mean, think of the recent Peggy Noonan column asserting that Obama has an America problem. Think of the Newsweek cover that says Obama consumes less American foods than George Bush and Hillary Clinton. The Wright story feeds the larger story that Obama is too much of an outsider to be president, and that story would not look the same if he and Wright were white.

On the Chomskyite maneuver (wasn't that a Star Trek episode?)...

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the Socialist meetings
Learned all the old Union hymns
But now I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in.
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a Liberal!

(Phil Ochs)

This move is an old, old habit. The kind that dies hard.

I think you're grossly underestimating the license mainstream (read: white) religious figures have to make controversial statements without repercussion. A lot of this is fueled by the fact that he LOOK different-- his manner of speech, his dress, they're different and hence scary.

Or is it only the right-wing lunacy that they're permitted to spout?

This is not what I was hearing about Jerry Falwell.

Also, although many want to say its no big deal now - they are not even attempting to grapple with Obama's previous characterization of the relationship as a big deal in the very recent past. Also, hasn't Obama become a liar? You may think what Wright says is no big deal - but you can't really believe that Obama just found out about these views, can you?

Since apparently Chomsky has become such an unaddressable bogeyman that people cannot easily know the difference between Chomsky's notions and the actions of Bill Ayers or the Weather Underground, maybe a quote from the great far, far leftist Satan from his most powerful and evil days would suffice. From "On Resistance," from 1967, right after the first major demonstrations (and following civil disobedience) at the Pentagon, regarding the then-continuing U.S. attack on Vietnam.

The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming. As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

What is more, one hopes that participants in nonviolent resistance will themselves become human beings of a more admirable sort. No one can fail to be impressed by the personal qualities of those who have grown to maturity in the civil rights movement.

Whatever else it may have accomplished, the civil rights movement has made an inestimable contribution to American society in transforming the lives and characters of those who took part in it. Perhaps a program of principled, nonviolent resistance can do the same for many others, in the particular circumstances that we face today.

It is not impossible that this may save the country from a terrible future, from yet another generation of men who think it clever to discuss the bombing of North Vietnam as a question of tactics and cost-effectiveness.

I must admit that I was relieved to find people whom I had respected for years in the prison dormitory -- Norman Mailer, Jim Peck, David Dellinger, and a number of others. I think that it was reassuring to many of the kids who were there to be able to feel that they were not totally disconnected from a world that they knew and from people whom they admired.

It was touching to see that defenseless young people who had a great deal to lose were willing to be jailed for what they believed—young instructors from State Universities, college kids who have a very bright future if they are willing to toe the line.

What comes next? Obviously, that is the question on everyone's mind. The slogan "from dissent to resistance" makes sense, I think, but I hope that it is not taken to imply that dissent should cease.

Dissent and resistance are not alternatives but activities that should reinforce each other. There is no reason why those who take part in tax refusal, draft resistance, and other forms of resistance, should not also speak to church groups or town forums, or become involved in electoral politics to support peace candidates or referenda on the war. In my experience, it has often been those committed to resistance who have been most deeply involved in such attempts at persuasion.

Putting aside the matter of resistance for a moment, I think it should be emphasized that the days of "patiently explain" are far from over. As the coffins come home and the taxes go up, many people who were previously willing to accept government propaganda will become increasingly concerned to try to think for themselves...

...Some seem to feel that resistance will "blacken" the peace movement and make it difficult to reach potential sympathizers through more familiar channels. I don't agree with this objection, but I feel that it should not be lightly disregarded. Resisters who hope to save the people of Vietnam from destruction must select the issues they confront and the means they employ in such a way as to attract as much popular support as possible for their efforts. There is no lack of clear issues and honorable means, surely, hence no reason why one should be impelled to ugly actions on ambiguous issues. In particular, it seems to me that draft resistance, properly conducted (as it has been so far ), is not only a highly principled and courageous act, but one that might receive broad support and become politically effective. It might, furthermore, succeed in raising the issues of passive complicity in the war which are now much too easily evaded...

...We all take part in the war to a greater or lesser extent, if only by paying taxes and permitting domestic society to function smoothly. A person has to choose for himself the point at which he will simply refuse to take part any longer...

...The issue is posed in its starkest form for the boy who faces induction and, in a form that is somewhat more complex, for the boy who must decide whether to participate in a system of selective service that may pass the burden from him to others less fortunate and less privileged. It is difficult for me to see how anyone can refuse to engage himself, in some way, in the plight of these young men. The ways to do so range from legal aid and financial support, to such measures as assisting those who wish to escape the country, and finally to the steps proposed by the clergymen who recently announced that they are ready to share the fate of those who will be sent to prison. About this aspect of the program of resistance I have nothing to say that will not be entirely obvious to anyone who is willing to think the matter through...

...With the enormous dangers of escalation and its hateful character, it makes sense, in such a situation, to search for ways to raise the domestic cost of American aggression, to raise it to a point where it cannot be overlooked by those who have to calculate such costs. One must then consider in what ways it is possible to pose a serious threat. Many possibilities come to mind: a general strike, university strikes, attempts to hamper war production and supply, and so on.

Personally, I feel that disruptive acts of this sort would be justified were they likely to be effective in averting an imminent tragedy. I am skeptical, however, about their possible effectiveness. At the moment, I cannot imagine a broad base for such action, in the white community at least, outside the universities. Forcible repression would not, therefore, prove very difficult. My guess is that such actions would, furthermore, primarily involve students and younger faculty from the humanities and the theological schools as well as some scientists. The professional schools, engineers, specialists in the technology of manipulation and control (much of the social sciences) would probably remain relatively uninvolved. Therefore the long-range threat, whatever it proved to be, would be to American humanistic and scientific culture. I doubt that this would seem important to those in decision-making positions...

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19671207.htm

Compared with the kind of blather we now hear about what we all "must" do from "intellectuals" who were spectacularly wrong about the invasion & occupation of Iraq in the first place, Pr. Awful Hate America Far Far Left Chomsky sounds pretty good by comparison.

Damn straight. In a sane country he would be well within the mainstream.

And the liberal mindset of "nothing but enemies on the left" has been a huge contributor to the rightward ratchet effect in American politics.

The Wright/Hagee double-standard
You have video of Hagee saying the objectionable statements?
Wright's church sold DVDs containing the soundclips.

Thanks for posting that, El Cid, and for standing up against the reflexive "michael moore is f at" style anti intellectual and anti progressive style of rote chomsky attacks. I urge everyone to read as much comsky as they can get to see whether he has not simply consistently and honorably looked and power relations within the US and between the US and other countries from a humanitarian perspective.

And as for Paul L. What on earth does the existence or other of video clips have to do wtih anything. And are you under the impression that Hagee says what he says (and he's on record with all the things he's accused of saying) for somethign other than the profit motive? I don't know whether he, like other christian fundamentalist church leaders sells video of himself but I do know that he fundraises, as they all do, in and out of church. Try reading up a bit on Hagee and all the other mega church pastors. They are all doing it for the money. Until they get caught.

aimai

My God (so to speak) - have we really learned nothing this election season? Who thinks a "thought exercise" of "If Obama was white" is a good idea? Isn't this precisely the kind of exercise that got us Gerry Ferraro? If Obama were white, if he were a woman... he's not. He's a black man. His preacher is a black preacher. Deal with what we have, not some fantasy of what we don't. How hard is this? We have no idea - none, I tell you - of how to tell the story of Obama/Wright in some analagous "world o' white people"; that's not the deal here. This is a story about a black man, the black church... and the role of race in our discussions. We can't talk around it, we actually have to go through it. And if we can't talk about the black man, and the black preacher and the fact that this story is about black people, then frankly, I think we've gotten absolutely nowhere, this election season, in how we talk about race in this country. Just nowhere.

And as for Paul L. What on earth does the existence or other of video clips have to do wtih anything.
So the answer is no.
You want the same reaction then post video on Youtube of Hagee saying crazy racist Anti-American statements.

Heck, Why are you outraged by Anti-Catholic statements from Hagee? Progressives defended Amanda Marcotte when she did the same.

Aimai, nobodies actual preacher was attacked. They attacked Kerry for not being religious enough. They attack ALL Democrats for not being religious enough. Thats entirely different from actually attacking someones religion.

They might attack a Mormons religion, they might attack a Scientologist's religion, but they would never attack a white Christian's religion like we're seeing here. This kind of attack can only be made against a black preacher, because white people wouldn't accept this attack on one of their own preachers. There's a reason why several black preachers have been attacked in this way over the last 50 years, and why white preachers can blame the jews for all the worlds problems or say gays cause 9/11 and have it only be a 1 day story. You can all refuse to see whats in front of you all you want, that won't ever change reality.

Either you all think no white preachers of a candidate have ever said anything crazy or you're just making excuses to pretend you live in a better world than the one you actually live in.

Obama's about as black (on the inside) as the Pope, and that's pretty damned white. Obama is an upper middle-class University of Chicago elitist egghead progressive paternalistic do-gooder. He's got absolutely nothing in common with the real South Side except perhaps Rev. Wright. I wish I were as white as Obama, then maybe I wouldn't have to work so damned hard for so little money.

soullite,
Please go back and read what I said very carefully. I agree with you about a lot of things on this thread but you are wrong it you think that the only reason Obama has a wright problem is that wright is black. That compounds the problem for both of them but the fact of the matter is that white preachers and ministers have been demonized as long as they are liberal--look at what is happening right now to the Episcopalian Bishop.

This is much, much, much bigger than just Obama and Wright. As you say they attacked Kerry, and all Democrats, as "not christian" enough and "not the right kind of christian" because there has been a concerted, 30 year effort by very wealthy christian evangelicals and dominionists to take the "christian" brand and particular christian churches like the Southern Baptists away from any taint of liberalism.

I'd like to point out that the more authoritarian and homophobic of Obama's black ministerial/religious support were simply not targeted by the right wing even though/if their pronouncements on political things might seem as kooky to some white audiences as Wright's views.

I, personally, have no problem with Reverend Wright's views, except his unscientific ones. I find nothing startling or even controversial in them. But I think its clear that if Wright had said the exact same things but only about gays, or only about muslims, his race would not be being used against him by the right wing.

I'd also like to point out that the Mormons got a pass, and still get a pass, from evangelicals and from conservative republicans as long as they don't try for the presidency. That was a little too far for them but you have yet to see any serious condemnation of the FLDS by any top religious/conservative figures. That is because its not the christianity or lack of it that defines a problem preacher but whether the authoritarian nature of their ranting supports or doesn't support current republican policies on sex, money, and war.

aimai

Weboy said it best but here, also, is my response to the idiot who thinks that Hagee isn't on tape saying the things he's been accused of saying.

A) do your own damn google search and you'll find it all in about two seconds.

B) Amanda Marcotte! ohmygod Amanda Marcotte!

C) Get back to me when you have amanda marcotte on tape explaining how the flying spaghetti monster wants to kill all the gays, ok?

Hagee has taken heat for comments that he made regarding the Catholic Church. Hagee claims some of his comments were taken out of context. You can hear these comments for yourself in a video from Veracifier available through YouTube. Hagee's statements about the Catholic Church hardly reveal the extent of the man's lunacy. When Hagee makes the following remarks, he is pointing to a figurine of a person riding atop a horned lion:

This [it's unclear whether Hagee is pointing to the lion or the person] is the great whore of Revelation 17. This [the lion] is the antichrist system. This [the person] is the apostate church. In this cup [held by the person] if you will read it in the book of Revelation is the blood of the saints. This is talking principally about the blood of the Jewish people. Where? From the crusades, that happened back here [earlier on a timeline]. From the Spanish Inquisition. From the Holocaust. When Adolf Hitler came to power he said, I'm not going to do anything in my lifetime that hasn't been done by the Roman church for the past 800 years, I'm only going to do it on a greater scale, and more efficiently. And he certainly had done just exactly that. God has said, I gave you the time to repent, but you did not. You [the person], this false cult system, that was born in Genesis 10, and progressed through Israel and became Baal worship, God says, the day is going to come, when I'm going to cause this beast [the lion] to devour this apostate system [the person]. So you can see very clearly that, while the church is in heaven, this false religious system [the person] is going to be totally devoured by the antichrist.

The same YouTube video plays a selection of Hagee from a radio interview; Wolf includes the following text:

From an interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program:

GROSS: I just want to ask you one question based on one of your sermons that -- and this isn't about Israel. You said after Hurricane Katrina that it was an act of God, and you said "when you violate God's will long enough, the judgment of God comes to you. Katrina is an act of God for a society that is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah reborn." Do you still think that Katrina is punishment from God for a society that's becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah?

HAGEE: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

GROSS: So I know you're very opposed to homosexuality, but you think that the whole city was punished because of things like the forthcoming Gay Pride parade.

HAGEE: This is true. All of the city was punished because of the sin that happened there in that city.

Weboy said it best but here, also, is my response to the idiot who thinks that Hagee isn't on tape saying the things he's been accused of saying.

A) do your own damn google search and you'll find it all in about two seconds.

B) Amanda Marcotte! ohmygod Amanda Marcotte!

C) Get back to me when you have amanda marcotte on tape explaining how the flying spaghetti monster wants to kill all the gays, ok?

Hagee has taken heat for comments that he made regarding the Catholic Church. Hagee claims some of his comments were taken out of context. You can hear these comments for yourself in a video from Veracifier available through YouTube. Hagee's statements about the Catholic Church hardly reveal the extent of the man's lunacy. When Hagee makes the following remarks, he is pointing to a figurine of a person riding atop a horned lion:

This [it's unclear whether Hagee is pointing to the lion or the person] is the great whore of Revelation 17. This [the lion] is the antichrist system. This [the person] is the apostate church. In this cup [held by the person] if you will read it in the book of Revelation is the blood of the saints. This is talking principally about the blood of the Jewish people. Where? From the crusades, that happened back here [earlier on a timeline]. From the Spanish Inquisition. From the Holocaust. When Adolf Hitler came to power he said, I'm not going to do anything in my lifetime that hasn't been done by the Roman church for the past 800 years, I'm only going to do it on a greater scale, and more efficiently. And he certainly had done just exactly that. God has said, I gave you the time to repent, but you did not. You [the person], this false cult system, that was born in Genesis 10, and progressed through Israel and became Baal worship, God says, the day is going to come, when I'm going to cause this beast [the lion] to devour this apostate system [the person]. So you can see very clearly that, while the church is in heaven, this false religious system [the person] is going to be totally devoured by the antichrist.

The same YouTube video plays a selection of Hagee from a radio interview; Wolf includes the following text:

From an interview with Terry Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program:

GROSS: I just want to ask you one question based on one of your sermons that -- and this isn't about Israel. You said after Hurricane Katrina that it was an act of God, and you said "when you violate God's will long enough, the judgment of God comes to you. Katrina is an act of God for a society that is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah reborn." Do you still think that Katrina is punishment from God for a society that's becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah?

HAGEE: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

GROSS: So I know you're very opposed to homosexuality, but you think that the whole city was punished because of things like the forthcoming Gay Pride parade.

HAGEE: This is true. All of the city was punished because of the sin that happened there in that city.

Hey, douchebag: Check out this YouTube video from Bill Moyers' profile of Hagee. At about 9 minutes into the piece, Hagee claims that the suffering of New Orleans is the result of the expulsion of Israeli Jewish settlers from occupied lands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaXs8MdmXWY

Oh, gawrsh, what fierce resources I possess in Google & YouTube and 2 minutes' worth of browsing!

El Cid,

Paul L. doesn't have time to do "research" -- he's too busy trolling around the toobz and internets being a nimrod.

Yeah, people like Baber prefer blacks to just shuffle along quietly so he doesn't have to notice they're there, saying nothing except perhaps the occasional "yes, massa".

What kind of bs is this? I said that what Americans, including myself, found offensive about Wright was his identity politics--the idea that minorities should affirm their cultural and alleged genetic differentness, and use that for political purposes.

I actually agree with Wright's "Chomskyite" critique of the US. I have no problem with his calling America the "US of KKK" or "God damn America." It's the baloney about black kids learning with their right brains and is Afro-Centric historical mythology that I find objectionable.

If you want to argue, read my (just released) book: The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity at http://www.amazon.com/Multicultural-Mystique-Liberal-Against-Diversity/dp/1591025532/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207497777&sr=8-1

Wow, quite a difference between Bill Moyers' wiffleball treatment of Wright and his hard hitting treatment of Hagee.

And does Mccain attend Hagee's church?

"Anti-multicuturalism" is just a genteel, pseudo-intellectual form of racism. If you were genuinely interested in letting people define themselves, you'd simply shut up, because they don't need your "help".

Baber, there's a certain amount of hypocrisy in your claims: no one holds it against anyone in the USA when they want to affirm their "cultural differentnes" (claims of genetic differentness are almost always pseudo-scientific, so I'll ignore those for the moment). Americans *only* raise objections when African Americans are culturally defensive. Much was made about how Wright's church said it was "unapologetically black"-- yet no one blinks twice at Korean-American churches or any number of other heavily ethnic churches peppered throughout the USA.

But suddenly when you're african-american and do this, people howl like banshees as though they're doing something unAmerican.

absolutely would not be an issue.

First off, the media would not run it 24 hours a day.

And secondly, they could not use it to scare whitey.

That is there job. Are we tough enough to fight them.

"no one holds it against anyone in the USA when they want to affirm their 'cultural differentnes'"

I'm obviously missing something here; have you not heard of the "gay agenda?"

Much was made about how Wright's church said it was "unapologetically black"-- yet no one blinks twice at Korean-American churches or any number of other heavily ethnic churches peppered throughout the USA.

If immigrants from Korea form a Korean-American church where they can hear sermons in their native language and club together temporarily for mutual support in a strange new country, neither I nor anyone else would object. I would object if a minister of Korean ancestry insisted that the monolingual English-speaking grandchildren and great-grand children should identify with their Korean roots, maintain an ethnic identity, affiliate with churches that were "proudly Korean" or take a special interest in Korean affairs. I would certainly object if he claimed that Koreans thought with a different side of their brain from non-Koreans. And if I were an American or Korean ancestry I would not merely object--I would be mad as hell.

I don't doubt that there's lots more going on with the Wright story. But one important thing that is going on is that most Americans prefer the assimilationist melting pot to the multicultural salad bowl. Admittedly I'm making a guess about what most Americans think on these matters. I can assure you that as for myself, I am not a hypocrite and I am consistent: I object to the perpetuation of ethnic identity and preservation of "cultural diversity" regardless of the group in question, whether it's blacks, Koreans, Swedes, Hispanics, Italians, Poles--anyone. Period.

H.E. Baber,
are you nuts? The biggest Korean American church of all time, and the most powerful, includes massively nutty conspiracy theories and race theories including the belief that the chief reverend is really jesus, that homosexuals should be executed, and that koreans are a more perfect (though quite imperfect) life form than blacks, for example.
That would be the church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and it is so wealthy that it has been able to buy face time with congressmen and owns its own newspaper to spread its own (frequently racist) propaganda.

Oh, and try remembering that *christian identity* is the religious arm of the extremely racist, anti semitic christian church that insists that Jesus wasn't a jew because the modern day jews are too contaminated a people to have produced their savior.

And try reading up on the Russian christian groups and their extreme racial and sexual ideology sometime.

The fact that *you* don't know anything about the religious communities that make up america, or how deeply racist, racialist, and plain nutty scientific theories of blood and mind are inbred in some of these sects, just proves that you know...well, nothing.

"Americans prefer the assimilationist melting pot to the multicultural salad bowl?" You know fuck all about what americans think. Try counting up all the little loony side sects and you'll pretty soon find out you've got a majority of people who actively act out "multiculturalism" even as they hurl that charge as an epithet at everyone else. Only someone who paid absolutely no attention to reality could ever think that "assimilation" was anythign other than a propaganda point for groups that think they can maintain their hold on power if they can just get everyone else to shut up.

And how comfortable for you, who have renounced, presumably, any special treatment or even any historical memory to wish it away for everyone else.
aimai

A quick search of this site (American Prospect - including Ezra's blog) will show you plenty of concern about Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Chrisitianists and various other white preachers who are associated with political candidates.

I would object if a minister of Korean ancestry insisted that the monolingual English-speaking grandchildren and great-grand children should identify with their Korean roots, maintain an ethnic identity, affiliate with churches that were "proudly Korean" or take special interest in Korean affairs.

See, the thing is I don't believe you. Why? Because what you're describing is what happens in thousands of ethnic churches across the country. The difference is that they're white or asian, and the Asian communities haven't been here for too many generations. But this has been going on in the USA for the better part of the 20th century, and the latter part of the 19th century.... and no one objects... except when African Americans do it. That's when people raise a fuss.

You know why ethnic groups in America do stuff like that and maintain their communities and identities through their churches? Because it *works*. Because it helps them get on their feet economically, become successful, and insulate themselves from social problems within the USA. And that's why African Americans might want to organize their churches the same way: because it *works* and it helps the community. And as I said, no one objects to the concept until African Americans start doing it.

Tyro,
you are fighting the good fight but really what is the point. Baber oesn't know anything at all about american history, or american christian history, or he'd know that the *existence of african american churches* is itself a hard won *right.* Under early american slavery Africans couldn't be converted, and couldn't have their own churches. Later, when it proved convenient, theycould have their own churches but couldn't perform binding wedding ceremonies. Post slavery there was a huge debate about integrating the christian church and, of course, integration was quite rare and under jim crow illegal or impossible. So the modern existence of "afrocentric" churches grows out of the fact that *white church goers* wouldn't accept or pay for black preachers and black congregations, or accept black congregants in large numbers. Ok? Baber? The existence of african separatism comes historically *after* white separatism, rejection, and outright segregation.

aimai

Of course I'm aware of that history, and of the origin of modern afrocentric churchs, as a consequence of exclusion by whites. That was a bad thing. But the fix is to stop that exclusion, to promote integration and assimilation.

Currently most white churches DO accept black members is as large numbers as they apply for membership and will hire black preachers. If they don't, if they exclude blacks from membership or discriminate against black applicants for clergy positions they should be slammed for discrimination with the full force of the law and publicly humiliated.

The problem with a good deal of the rhetoric about assimilation that's flown for a century or two is that many people who talk this talk don't really mean it. I really mean it.

Now I don't claim to have done a survey of other Americans' opinions on this matter but for my self I find the long-term persistence of ANY ethnic communities objectionable. Certainly, as a pragmatic matter, it is fine for a first generation to work together to make the transition, but the aim is assimilation. Immigrant groups inevitably do assimilate and to burden the descendants of immigrants, or members of visible minorities, with an ethnic identity with which they do not identify, to promote "authenticity" defined by bloodlines, is just plain racism.

You might want to have a look at Richard Thompson Ford Racial Culture or The Race Card, or maybe Keith Richburg Out of America for this kind of argument. Or at Amartya Sen's arguments against what he calls "plural monoculturalism."

Baber,
Here's the thing--we are never talking about what *you* would do if you were black, or if you think of yourself as any kind of minority. Its just not relevant. It doesn't reflect what "most americans" think, hell--it doesn't reflect what most americans do. Certainly not what "most white americans" do or did. What Amartya Sen argues is also neither here nor there. You live with the multicultural mix you've got, not the one you wish you'd got.

Like many Americans I'm rightly proud of my country and our struggles to live up to our ideals, as expressed, however, imperfectly, in the constitution and the bill of rights. But what has that got to do with whether immigrants or indigenous or novel communities choose to stay together for some purposes, or come together for some purposes. We are a society of many small communities some of which cross cut others--unions, worker's associations, religious communities, sororities, schools, etc..etc..etc.. perhaps I would even agree, a la Durkheim, that we are stronger the more integrated we are vertically and horizontally and functionally. But that doesn't eliminate the need for, or the existence of, some level of self segregation in order to perpetuate particular valued cultural traits.

Why should african americans be forced to accept permanently minority status in majority white churches? Should jews be forced to join episcopalians in order to "assimilate" to a larger christian society? Should italian or polish catholics be forced to close their little local churches *in order* to assimilate to german catholic tastes? What is the tipping point for determining when majority rules and tastes should swallow up local and minority ones?

You don't have an answer to that because the answer you are giving--based on your personal taste--is just, well, fake. "the long term persistence of any ethnic communities" is "objectionable?" to you? What, are native americans, jews, blacks, mexicans, basques, nisei, etc... to commit cultural suicide in order to make you feel more comfortable? Is there nothing of value in those minority cultures?

If you imagine that you are taking some kind of principled stance on the elimination of cultural difference and historical and personal memory are we all going to start speaking esperanto and taking our names by lottery or are you advocating straight up superiority and dominance of some particular model of "real" or "valid" or "majority" american culture? and will that be based on
1) puritan england
2) georgian england
3) 17th century Dutch/new york
4) german/Pennsylvania
5) Spanish/california and mexico
6) French/lousiana
7) cavalier fantasy (the south)
or native american indigenous?

Do, pray tell me, what is the authentic american mush you think we should all aspire to and where do I get the handbook that tells me which of my objectionable cultural traits I have to get rid of to participate?

aimai

Do, pray tell me, what is the authentic american mush you think we should all aspire to and where do I get the handbook

How nice of you to ask about the handbook: it's available at http://www.amazon.com/Multicultural-Mystique-Liberal-Against-Diversity/dp/1591025532/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207497777&sr=8-1 I would be very pleased if you'd get it and review it--whether favorably or unfavorably. Go for it.

The issue is not that members of minorities should be forced to assimilate but that they should not be forced to maintain ethnic identities determined by bloodlines against their will. The assumption seems to be that all (normal?) or most members of minority groups would prefer to maintain the cultural traditions of their ancestors. That's an empirical claim that I challenge.

The issue is not that members of minorities should be forced to assimilate but that they should not be forced to maintain ethnic identities determined by bloodlines against their will.

Outside of Native Americans, the United States does not have officially-recognized "minority communities" who are given special accommodation and benefits from the government in terms of their language, schools, and churches, like, say, Catalonians, Frisians, or Saami do. In America, no one is forced, by dint of their ethnic background, to attend any specific school or be expected be painted as part of any specific group against their will.

It stands to reason that the motivation for ethnic communities who've been here for many generations but still maintain their ethnic identities is an act of choice made because they derive greater benefits from doing so than they would from fully assimilating. And make no mistake: the assimilationist forces in the United States are extraordinarily strong, to the point where few will end up speaking the language of their immigrant grandparents.

But that's for whites who have the choice. For African Americans, the issue is the opposite: they will always be seen by others as part of a "different group," but have little in the way of tight-knit ethnic support communities, and it doesn't help when people criticize them for trying to make some. Wright faces a hostility that pastors of other ethnic churches don't. By all accounts, the priest at Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's Serbian Orthodox Church hasn't caught any such flak.

It is also an important point that many groups came to the United States because they faced persecution, in their own countries, because of their ethnic identities. It seems a bit contradictory to the American character to expect that such people would face disrespect for using America's freedom to practice the traditions that they were persecuted for elsewhere.

Actually there is another ethnic group for which the US government makes special accommodations--the Amish. Since the Yoder decision their kids have been exempt from compulsory schooling after 8th grade. IMHO this decision was a really bad one--as the one dissenting justice pointed out it seriously restricted the options of Amish children, making exit from Amish communities for those who wanted out more difficult.

You greatly underestimate the social pressure on individuals who are identified as members of minorities to identify with ancestral cultures and the difficulty of exit from ethnicly defined communities. Even where there aren't official government policies which crank up the costs of exit there are a variety of incentives and disincentives pressing minorities to identify with ancestral cultures.

I would dispute your claim that black Americans "will always be seen by others as part of a 'different group.'" That seems to me unduly pessimistic. What I, and I suspect many other Americans, found appealing about Obama's call to transcend race was the hope that this was not inevitable--that black Americans would not always be seen as others as part of a 'different group.'

Descendants of European immigrations do have a choice about the extent they identify with ancestral cultures--indeed, whether they identify at all. Most in fact choose to assimilate. I think it's both feasible and desirable to see to it that members of "visible minorities" have that same choice. The more choice people have the better. Moreover my bet is that given the real chance most would choose to assimilate, just as most members of "invisible" minorities have.

Baber,
your posts are evidence that a little education is a dangerous thing. The US makes some special accomodations due to the *religion* clause and no other. We do not have "personal law" in the sense that individual communities can choose, or be forced, to accept a distinct set of laws as they do in other countries. Therefore the individual is not forced, and can not be forced other than through coercion or brainswashing, to accept some special status within US law and custom. No society that is free can wholly evade the possibility that sub state communities will coerce or force individuals into acting in ways they don't want. YOu might want to remember that individuals freely contract with each other in all kinds of ways taht you don't think are problematic--such as home owner's associations and loan agreements.

You can dispute a claim that "black americans will always be seen by others as part of a different group" all you want. I didn't make it but Tyro isn't wrong. This isn't exactly a fucking thought experiment you moron. Brazil still has its racial divisions and distinctions and we have been struggling with ours for some few centuries. You don't get to declare *other people's* problems over at your whim.

And by the way every few days here in the land of "assimilated invisible minorities" like jews, italians, and irish we find out just how brutal and how grievous some aspects of the forced assimiliation of the grandparent generation was. You *also* don't get to wish away the experienes of people who fearfully gave up their language, literature, and heritage in order not to lose their jobs or cast a shadow on their children.

Your posts are some kind of bizarre cultural narcissism writ large. As Tyro says one of the greatest things about the US is its willingness to try to find a middle path between cultural imperialism and utter chaos. We owe a lot of credit to the groups who have fought, honorably and hard, to preserve their own identity and cultural traditions just as we owe a lot to the farsighted and sometimes nativist farmers who fought against monocrop agriculture. The same problems of weakness and inbred genetic flaws accompany all such attempts to ensure the creation of a homogenous master race.

aimai

What Jeremiah Wright says is no more a critique of the United States than my yelling, "you f---in' s.o.b. " at a cab driver is a critique of the New York transportation system.

that would be true, you anonymous coward, if Wright didn't also have a lifelong committment to working, through his church and outreach programs, to educate and uplift both blacks and whites who are struggling with poverty and lack of education and opportunity within his own community.

What Wright is quoted as saying is only a tiny fragment of what he is known to have done within his church and his community. So he's more like a person who sees that lots of people can't get on the bus and who shouts "hey, wait a minute! lets get more buses for everyone!" and also shakes his fist at the departing bus driver. One outburst, or even a speaking style, doesn't really call into question a lifetime of actual, on the ground, work for justice. A pity that lazy, upper class, white americans don't spend a little more time working and thinking about social justice for everyone but instead spend five seconds repeating mass media smears of people actually in the trenches.

This whole "wright is a racist" and his church is too thing depends on simultaneously arguing that racism was a strong factor in the lives of american blacks until some unspecified time just a few years ago and *also* that it is not a factor today having mysteriously just dissapeared entirely. At the same time we are offered what seems like an endless smorgasboard of pundit chatter about how lots of people in this country are "really" racist and won't vote for those naturally traitorous blacks (because blacks are evil) or "really" racist and will vote for blacks because of white guilt or black self aggrandizement. I turn on the TV and I find out that the leading pundits believe *everyone* in this society is racist but only reverend wright is racist for the wrong reasons and is to be held accountable. ITs weird to me. Its historically and sociologically blind in an utterly obvious and wilful way.

aimai

aimai