Counterpunch
April 28, 2008
But Will It Topple Obama?
Jeremiah Wright Delivers the Knockout Punch
By MIKE WHITNEY
Reverend Jeremiah Wright appeared on PBS Bill Moyers Journal on Friday night and delivered a knockout punch to the bully-boys in the corporate media. Wright showed that he is neither a fanatic nor an “America hater”; just an extremely well-read and principled man with an unshakable commitment to justice. Wright has also paid his dues; he's an ex-Marine who served as a medic in Vietnam when most of his critics were either hiding behind their student deferments or languishing in the "Champagne Unit" of the Texas National Guard.
What the media try to do by singling out Wright is pretty straightforward. They're trying to create the impression that blacks conceal a deep sense of grievance which expresses itself in rage. This generates feelings of fear among whites which, of course, is all part of the strategy. The message is simple; "blacks are angry, blacks are dangerous" and, oh by the way, Obama is black.
The attack on Wright is that it was set up in a way to make it look like the Reverend — a man whose entire career has been devoted to social justice — is a racist. That took a bit of maneuvering. In fact, the media, and their friends at the right-wing think tanks, had to dig through 15 years of Wright's sermons to find just the right snippets they needed to destroy Obama. Now that's determination!
Race has become one of the dominant issues on the campaign-trail. Obama is no longer just a man running for office; now he's a black man. That's how swift-boating works. Like they say in the Godfather; “It's not personal; it's just business”. The business of personal destruction.
Wright means nothing to the media or to the men behind the curtain. If he didn't provide an avenue for denigrating Obama, he'd be treated with the same indifference as the thousands of other blacks who were herded at gunpoint into the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina. Better buckle up. Obama has entered the crosshairs of America's criminal oligarchy and things are bound to get nasty.
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