Where Obama was Right
MARCH 2008
SAN FRANCISCO, CA --- Barack Obama's defense of the heated diatribes of Reverend Wright was mildly effective. What it led to is an important opening, to Obama's credit. He raised a question, one that should resonate with Americas's right.
What was undisclosed, hidden, brushed under the political carpet has been brought plainly to the surface. Obama being Obama, tried in his speech to ease the subsurface emotions, fears, contempt, of America's many minorities.. But the simple fact is that the Reverend Wright, Obama, and President Bush have asked the same question-- why did 19 "kids" ram airliners into innocent Americans. The word "kids" is President Bush's characterization.
That question is crucial. The structure of the question even more so.
The "kids" were ideological psychopaths, along with their godfather, the wealthy Saudi brat, Bin Laden. But behind every psychopath is a twisted view of their reality. In that question is the fact that too many American blacks join Reverend Wright in believing that we had it coming. Wasn't that the President's point. No, not that we had it coming. Rather that if you disenfranchise enough people, they will build their a view of America, as abhorent and foreign that view is to the majority of Americans. That a formal religion, Islam, can be forged into a militaristic exercise. Obama in his speech on Reverend Wright he was questioning why (and attempting to answer) too many black Americans and too many around the world have a deep contempt for America. Why is this so, asks Obama.
We've ignored the divisions for too long. We've ignored the reality shared by many here and abroad. We're wrapped up in our world, not the world's world. What's real in America is too often the obfuscated stories which the media digs up as real. And what gets media play is, for example, the subprime mortgage crisis, A threatening economic downturn, Britanny Spear's latest visit with her 'kids', who will win American idol, who will win this year's March Madness, and a host of media friendly soft issues. Nineteen fanatics led by a egotistical Saudi rich brat could care less. So do many in this country.
Those innocents, working in the World Trade Center Towers, and in the Pentagon were victims. For the murderers, the Bush's "kids", they were a symbol. A symbol is a visual presence that represents something beyond what's apparent. But the slaughter on 911 was real. Like the horrifying sound of bodies crashing to the pavement after a 50 story drop. Families were destroyed. That's real. The children still healing from the death of a parent. New Yorkers permanently traumatized. All these were is real.
So we have this disconnect.
The diabolical plotting to murder thousands in New York and Washington. Bin Laden's grinning pride in talking about the collapse of the towers, like a cold blooded demolition expert. Reverend Wright suggesting that America was guilty and deserving of punishment. Obama asking us to try to understand his reverend's words. The President suggesting that until we get to the root of the disenfranchisement, we won't prevent it from happening again.
There are no answers here. Only questions.
That's the importance of Obama's speech. He's asking us to see the paradox, the disconnect, to see the same event from different perspectives, while maintaining our own viewpoint. In other words, we can't erase our rage with terrorists. But part of defending ourselves, is to understand the enemy. To understand the enemy we must see their distorted reality from their point of view. We will be more effective in defending this democracy by connecting the dots. That includes suspending our viewpoint to see our enemy's enemy, to see Reverend Wright's America. If only those who hate America would, or could, do the same, including so many on the American Left.
