Gut Check: How much of your principles are you willing to compromise...

to win this election?

I've reached my limit. I will not break-off my support of Wright's speech, because the message is more important than winning. Because breaking off support of Wright for political convenience means denouncing a message that I fundamentally agree with - a message too important and too easily forgotten. And one so simple, they call it The Golden Rule.

I want Obama to be a champion - not another martyr. But this is about something bigger. For those of you doing backflips to take issue with just about anything and everything but Wright's message - what is it that you're trying to silence?

Hey, it's just politics, right? A display of Social Darwinism that's not unlike Big Brother IX, or corporate america, or a social structure so familiar to us, we call it "reality". And here's Wright railing against that fundamentally flawed and unjust system, and making an appeal to commit to treat each other better. Nice sentiment, but this is politics. Sorry Reverend. That's the message people send while they're dismissing Wright's for political gain, isn't it?

As America's ugliness rises to the surface - it's bigger and uglier than I expected. I want no part of it, and I won't give-in to it.

Giving in allows them to falsely claim they have substance.

Hear hear! I couldn't agree more.

It's so rare to find a man of God who walks the talk... Rev. Wright's church is doing the work Jesus told us to do... I tried very hard to pick him apart and show his weakness... I couldn't do it. I couldn't find one thing in what he said or what his church is doing that warranted my angst or disapproval. So very rare.

Even if you don't have a Christian background, I don't see how you could possibly find fault in this man's work. It's all about helping the helpless, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, nourishing the mind and the body.

Rev. Wright walks the talk, and he is doing what Jesus said to do...

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25:40

I won't give in either, rucky. You and I have had our share of disagreements, but on this, I think we are solid.

that's the problem with our politics, everybody's always willing to compromise and so many step over the line ever so easily. The only "problem" with Rev. Wright is he's speaking the truth.

... but when the going gets even just a LITTLE bit bumpy, they'll immediately toss the expendable negroes away.

It's funny because they're a perfect example of what Wright has been fighting against.

I hope Wright stays around, so we can see all the bigots as they actually are, and also see the "good whites" not be willing to fight for black folks - thus supporting racism.


EDIT: Clarified subject line.

If you want to talk about principle, there would be very little that would compare to the election of America's First Black President as a statement of racial progress -- and all of the policy implications of that.

I also think that Rev. Wright made a somewhat racist message with his talk about "left brain/right brain" differences being racial.

Right wingers have been justifiably raked over the coals over the years for saying the same things that Wright was saying.

and thoroughly cited solid academic sources.

the construct "race" with culture and they do it all the time.

and associates it with African/AA peope and Europeans, it's getting perilously close to biological racial imperatives.

Obviously there are cultural differences. But I would be very wary of beginning to ascribe that to neurology.

neurologists, lol, they know more than I do.

Nature/nurture can't really be completely separated, imho, anyway. But, his larger point seems to be to teach to different learning styles without judgment, and I agree with that. :)

I had a heluva time with those left-brained subjects in school. :)

I couldn't follow either set of beats because my brain stalled!

lol

because it appears to be coming down to a choice.

diversity, they are reducing Obama to a token candidate and what we'll wind up with is our first token black president.

that's very real. And maybe he got the root cause wrong, but that's no reason to throw out the entire speech.

by the discussions surrounding Rev. Wright.

It's not the media.

It's not the politicians.

It's WE that are to blame.

I honestly do not understand how ANYONE can listen to his speech and hear his message and then turn around and call HIM divisive. He spent over 30 minutes explaining that we are different but equal, period. I expected this speech to go over the heads of many conservatives but I am simply amazed by the amount of democrats and common americans that completely missed the point. I thought that WE were ready to hear and accept his message but I was wrong... I guess WE aren't ready for a change after all.

if we don't know the truth? What are we changing to, if the American public is not exposed to our present reality, and how we got here?

but able to understand and appreciate the reality that we are all different. Many people only hear what they want to hear, too many of us stop listening as soon as we hear something we disagree with. I can not honestly say that i agree 100% with every single word that Rev. Wright said, as i do not agree with every single word that Obama says or anyone else for that matter... But his message is what is important, and i agree 100% with what he is trying to convey. We all have different views shaped by different perspectives shaped by any number of experiences and in order for us to change WE need to have the ability to understand and accept these differences and realize that being different from each other is NOT a bad thing.

Too many of us stop listening when they see who's clearing their throat to speak.

Wright could've recited the Sermon on the Mount and it wouldn't have mattered.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --John Quincy Adams

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

--Niccolo Machiavelli

k/r

Another principle on which I will compromise: I will drink "unfair trade" coffee from the nostrils of a pit bull at the Olive Garden while it openly breastfeeds a neocon... if it will ensure a Democratic victory in November.

Plucky, Ducky, and Bananafanafofucky say hi.

Well, now at least I know the theme of tonight's nightmare.

Principle over political expediency, always.

to a point where I don't know if my moniker is applicable any longer.

Wright can take care of himself... and obviously that doesn't involve shutting the FU until the second week in November. He is doing Obama no favors.

It's damaging to Obama because of who he is and how it will be treated by the media. So THE MEDIA is damaging Obama's campaign - not Wright. I suppose he could STFU. Then everything would be fine? The media would make nice again? We silence somebody who delivers a universal message because of who he is? And not even that, but because of how he's been portrayed? Then blame him for finally speaking out against the neverending hit job?

I don't think Obama's shaken up about Wright *gasp* speaking. We can support Wright's message and Obama's candidacy at the same time. I would like to think those two things aren't mutually exclusive. And fuck the media for suggesting that it is.

I'm also pretty disappointed in a good number of Obama supporters who are buying into that false choice.

isn't it?

That was the final straw. There is no difference between she and the Republicans anymore.

Do you endorse that principle?

But there's a point where pragmatism carries so much long-term collateral damage that it becomes unpragmatic. I'm not comfortable with the media's power, and it's pretty clear they're engineering the demise of Obama. We can try to make Wright go away, but it won't stop the media - they'll find something else to twist. So we may as well side with the guy who: a) can attract a CNN news crew to the Detroit NAACP convention. and b) speaks truth to power - including addressing the very issue that's bringing Obama down.

Would you rather have this speech be the "Dean Scream", or "arugula"? Pick your poison.

is to go through it. We can't avoid it. The media and the candidates will continue to use race as an issue to divide us, and win political points. The only way to fight the lies is with the truth..and the internet!