Harry's Place

Was this the programme?

Jon Ronson travelled to their headquarters in Arkansas to discover if the New Klan are succeeding. Although the odds are stacked against him, Robb is confident he can rejuvenate the Klan. First he must teach his followers to change their ways and stop using the “N word”. With techniques gleaned from self-help books, New Klan claim to not hate blacks or Jews, don’t burn down churches or start lynchings and only wear their robes once a year.

New Klan, new BNP, same shit.

I wonder what Wright would make of comments about ‘them blacks’, incidentally.

So, he does not deny saying it/then claim he didn’t say it/and then say that he doesn’t remember saying it?

Be that as it may, I love the idea that changing the word “Jews” to “Zionism” in the context of Jewish/Zionist power and manipulation is thought to make it a watertight defence against its antisemitic content!

No doubt some idiots will pretend that it really does do the trick. We await!

Oy Vey

Say, wasn’t this swollen carbuncle His Hopichanginess’ resident parson-of-choice for several years?

“Jon Ronson travelled to their headquarters in Arkansas to discover if the New Klan are succeeding. ”

Well yes, they are succeeding.. the UCU left are linking to David Duke and retaliating against whistleblowers.

Mainstreaming Mission Accomplished!

How does changing “Jews” to “Zionists” make the Rev’s comments more palatable?

Our President, in 23 years of Sundays, heard nothing of this. He is shocked –shocked I tell you — that his pastor and spiritual mentor is an ignorant, hateful man.

“How does changing “Jews” to “Zionists” make the Rev’s comments more palatable?”

It does only to ignorant and hateful individuals.

I am a proud Zionist. I love my country. Every day a little more.

23 years + married him, baptized his kids, Hamas manifesto in the church bulletin.

It’s a good job there isn’t a ‘wriggler of the month’ award at Harry’s.
I’d be hard pushed to choose between the Rev. Wright and Sean Wallis this month.

Just heard some nut on the radio talking about the “massacre at Jenin” and how the Israelis prevented any investigation of it.

Turns out it is Jeremiah Wright.

Ah jeez…

These hate and ignorance mongers are doing immeasurable harm -

“How does changing “Jews” to “Zionists” make the Rev’s comments more palatable?”

The answer to that question can be found in the Kremlin archives holding the records of the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public.

Of course, in providing an answer to that question, the AZCSC remained blissfully unaware of, or resolutely unconcerned with its own irredeemable unpalatability.

.

Rev Wright could have been a big problem for Obama getting elected if Sarah Palin didn’t have preacher who was busy lynching witches in Africa in what he called “spiritual warfare”

Gene is going to ban DT for criticising His Holiness’ pastor.
What a couple of tossers. And not forgetting Obama and Wright, too.

I think now is an opportune time for Barak and Michelle Obama to each be asked what, if anything has changed in their perception of Zionism, since the 20 years that they attended Wright’s Church and forged close bonds with Wright.

Really, Josh Scholar? Pastor Larry Kroon of Wasilla, Alaska, lynched witches in Africa? Or did you just make that up?

Well,

In this case, Rev (loosely used expression of respect) is probably being restricted in accessing the President, and long time congregant, by Jews,.. well specifically one.

Isn’t Rahm Emanuel jewish?

In this case, Rev (loosely used expression of respect) is probably being restricted in accessing the President, and long time congregant, by Jews,.. well specifically one.

No, Joe. The President decides who he shall and shall not meet. He probably has no more desire to talk to his old friend right now as he does to me. Wright is saying that his protege is controlled by wicked Jews. But such conspirational nonsense is at the heart of his sick, twisted theology.

Which the Chosen listened to for 20 years.

Isn’t Rahm Emanuel jewish?

I don’t know, is he Emmanuel Goldstein?

Mesquito, Sarah Palin’s current (emphasis) Pastor did not actually lynch any witches while a missionary in Kenya; he did however organize a mob to drive a woman accused of being a witch out of town. Also I believe some of the Rev. Kroon’s (resist temptation to say looney) sermons makes the wrong Rev. Wright sound relatively sane.

I did think being a member of the Rev. Wright’s Black Power or “Afro-Centric” Church for 20+ years was going to sink Obama last year until Obama made that speech where he was suppose to explain why he had been a member of Wright’s church, instead went on to talk about America’s racial history. His sucess in using bait and switch to utterly enthrall my fellow guilt-ridden white democrats was a forerunner of speeches like the one in Cairo where he successful walked through a minefield.

David All: I can find no reference of Larry Kroon having ever been in Kenya.

About the KKKers campaigning for their former Grand Dragon David Duke. That may be in the 1990s when Duke was running for Governor of Louisana against the popular, colorful and noteriously corrupt incumbent Edwin Edwards*. The unofficial slogan of Edwards sucessful campaign for re-election to what turned out to be his last term as Governor was, “Vote for the Crook, not the Hood”!

*I can never remember whether Edwards served five terms as Governor of Louisana and was convicted of corruption in his fourth trial by federal prosecutors or vice-versa!

Mesquito, I believe he was.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “When they say Zionists, they mean Jews.”
Rev. Jeremiah Write says Jews when he means Zionists?

I did think being a member of the Rev. Wright’s Black Power or “Afro-Centric” Church for 20+ years was going to sink Obama last year until Obama made that speech where he was suppose to explain why he had been a member of Wright’s church, instead went on to talk about America’s racial history. His sucess in using bait and switch to utterly enthrall my fellow guilt-ridden white democrats was a forerunner of speeches like the one in Cairo where he successful walked through a minefield.

A black politician acknowledging and explaining white resentment in a nationally-broadcast speech? Quite apart from the quality of the speech itself — its honesty — Obama long ago demonstrated his ability to listen and value what each side had to say. All you’ve got in return is mid-70s agitprop about white guilt, reminiscent of the Sarah Smith interview with John Kass on Channel 4: he attributed the reception of Obama’s convention speech to lingering white liberal guilt.

Irredeemably stupid, the both of you.

I don’t know, is he Emmanuel Goldstein?

Wtf are you on about?

“If you’re a racist bigot, it is very difficult to disguise it. You’ll always let yourself down.”

Well apparently Jeremiah Wright disguised it for twenty years leaving his poor congregation shocked to discover that he was a racist loon.

Really, Josh Scholar? Pastor Larry Kroon of Wasilla, Alaska, lynched witches in Africa? Or did you just make that up?

You’re looking for Thomas Muthee — Palin’s occasional choice of preacher — who arranged a mob to forcibly evict a woman he declared a witch. Bonus points for paying attention to what he says about Jews.

Wright claims to have received his ideas about Zionist Jewish control of the POTUS from Ilan Pappe and from Mark Ellis (citing Ilan Pappe), who are Jews and therefore what they say is “historical fact”:

MARK THOMPSON: Of course people are keying in, Dr. Wright, on the statements you made regarding Jews.

REV. WRIGHT: Well let me say…I misspoke. Let me just say, Zionists.

And I quote Jews when I say that… I quoted Jews before the Society of Christian Ethics. I quote Mark Ellis a Jewish rabbi…and I quote Ilan Poppe, a Jewish historian who wrote the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine…and when I quote Jewish authors… persons who are Zionists call them “self-hating Jews” …. I am not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith. I’m talking about Zionists.

In fact Mark Ellis’ book is entitled Judaism Is Not Israel, and he talks about in his book the ethnic cleansing – Mark Ellis, a Jewish rabbi, the guy who wrote The Jewish Liberation Theology of the Palestinians and refers to Ilan Poppe’s book which details the ethnic cleansing that started in 1947 and 1948 and continues to 2009.

I’m talking about fact, historical fact. I’m not talking about emotionally charged words or the fact that like Jimmy Carter’s book, because he used the word that Jews themselves use – “apartheid”– and he gets labeled as anti-Semitic. Now they can jump on that one phrase if they want to, but they can’t undo history, and they can’t undo the facts of Jewish historians and Jewish theologians who write about what’s going on. .

Wright expands on the background and context of the circumstances of his conversation with The Daily Press:

MARK THOMPSON: …I want everybody to be clear that when you say… “them Jews won’t let him talk to me” you were specifically referring to Zionists.

REV. WRIGHT: Exactly. And as Hillary [Clinton] misspoke about being under fire as the camera showed her walking calmly walking from her plane to a limousine, I was walking from a worship service to my car trying to talk rapidly, trying to..answer this guy and trying to get him to get off the Barack Obama kick.

MARK THOMPSON: And to focus on what you were there for..the historic Hampton Ministers Conference.

REV. WRIGHT: Exactly…40 years before Barack was born I was coming to the Hampton Ministers Conference.

On what the Hampton Ministers’ Conference is:

REV. WRIGHT: For 95 years now the clergy, the seminaries here in the state of Virginia have offered an opportunity…at a time when most African-American clergy could not dream of ever going to seminary…95 years ago it started in a small manner…[an opportunity] for clergy to come to the campus and spend a week where the days are structured with worship service in the morning followed by classes until the evening…followed by worship services to close out the day.

Thompson asks Wright to comment on the murder that took place at The Holocaust Museum:

MARK THOMPSON: …Let me also give you the opportunity, this story breaks with an unfortunate bit of timing…a shooting…on the part a white supremacist at The Holocaust Museum, an African-American security guard dead….the shooter injured..he is a known white supremacist who says the Holocaust never happened…

MARK THOMPSON: You like the rest of us..decry…that kind of incident, correct?

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT: Absolutely. I decry…violence. I decry killing…one human being taking another human being’s life.

On having respect for the Jewish faith:

MARK THOMPSON: …and of course…as a theologian and a student of Judeo-Christianity, you have respect for the Jewish faith…

REV. WRIGHT: It’s our faith, it was Jesus’ faith.

MARK THOMPSON: …but you draw a distinction of course between Judiasm and Zionism?

REV. WRIGHT: as does Mark Ellis the Jewish theologian.

MARK THOMPSON: I make no bones about it, as a journalist and a talk show host, while I’m objective I’m not into sensationalism …I wanted Dr. Wright to come on here to kill foolishness before it gets started…

It has been made plain.

Bonus points for paying attention to what he says about Jews.

Ah, you probably mean the bit about the way some current economists and bankers don’t sit in church and therefore thwart the spiritual transformation of our communities, just like the “Israelites” who continue to do so to this very day.

Surely, Muthee, if asked, would draw a distinction between Jews and Israelites. Borrowing from the Mark Thompson/Reverend Wright interview transcript, Muthee could reply: “Of course, Israelites can jump on that one phrase if they want to, but they can’t undo history”. And Mark Thompson could reply: “It has been made plain”.

“Also I believe some of the Rev. Kroon’s (resist temptation to say looney) sermons makes the wrong Rev. Wright sound relatively sane.”

Sane? Belief in the existence of an all powerful, but very shy, supernatural being is a bit odd. Believing this same ‘God’ made a woman pregnant, had a son who grew up was murdered, and then arose from the dead so less than sane to me.

OT:

But I saw this on the NYT blog coverage of the Iranian elections. Who do you think this person is talking about I wonder?

I voted in London today. Outside the embassy a group of approx 20 vocal communists were urging people not to vote and chanting their old tired slogans. … In someways I feel dirty having legitimized another incompetent unqualified presidential candidate from within this corrupt system. But if this is the only expression I will be allowed, then it is one that I will make. — Shayan

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/updates-on-irans-presidential-election/

Well this is exactly the same false differentiation that has worked so we for the Muslim Jew haters so why shouldn’t it work for the white racists too.

Well this is exactly the same false differentiation that has worked so well for the Muslim Jew haters in Britain so why shouldn’t it work for the white racists in the USA too.

Thank yous to Emmanuel Goldstein for your correction about Palin’s minister, and Lbnaz for giving Rev. Wright’s rant in full.

In addition to lauding Colonel Quadaffi and Lewis Farrakhan, the Reverand Wright is on record for opining that the CIA invented Aids to kill blacks and that blacks have different brains from white people, and so must be taught math differently.

As the Leader of the Free World thoughtfully explained about his minister of twenty years:

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community”

Has Obama disowned the black community, or has he succumbed to the Jews? In either case, how do you teach math to a Mulatto?

I don’t know, but speaking as an American White man, I have a great deal of racial pride that our current President is half white.

Are Jews white? If so, how do you explain Sammy Davis Jr, that charismatic singer who was a short, one-eyed Negro Jew? And how do you teach math to a guy like that?

I didn’t vote for Obama, I voted against Sarah Palin. My investment in the current president is almost nil.

That said, in my congregation, we had for 18 years a rabbi I couldn’t abide. In all that time I think I agreed with one sermon, and one Rosh HaShanah I was so angry I almost walked out of the service – my poor daughter could see my face and was trying to prepare herself. I didn’t do it because I was properly brought up, but I wanted to.

I didn’t want to stay in that temple, but my kids were used to their Sunday and Hebrew schools, and their friends, and we were comfortable with the cantor and our friends there, and my father was also a member, so we stayed.

The church to which the Obamas belonged is a very prestigious church for African-Americans in Chicago. Staying in that church had political implications when he was a local and state politician, so that may also have figured into the decision. He was smart to jettison Wright, though, because I bet I wasn’t the only Jew who was going to vote against him (I supported Senator Clinton in the primary) because of Wright until he disassociated himself from the pastor, and until Senator McCain chose Sarah Palin as his veep.

Amen Abat.

There seems to be a massive problem among Harry’s Place commenters (and posters, too, come to think of it) with Contamination Panic: the idea that people must absorb bad ideology from being in the same room, church or even country as those who profess that ideology….

Anat, not Abat, sorry – pls excuse my typo.

Wtf are you on about?

You should know, Emmanuel/Joe…it’s all in the italics…

What is it about Obama running for president that suddenly made Wright a Class 1 antisemite? Obviously, for 20 years in his sermons and private thoughts shared with Obama this never managed to surface.

Its wonderful that Wright, as close as a mother (or was it grandmother) to Obama, never influenced Obama to feel the slightest twing of antisemitism and his rants against Israel for a genocide against the Palestinians were water off a duck’s back. That Obama managed to stay his tongue and not rebuke Wright over those 20 years is a testimony to Obama’s greatness.

His recent attitudes and understanding shown to Israel over the peace process and Iran demonstrate absolutely no Wright influence whatsoever……

(I can’t write any more of this pap)

What is it about Obama running for president that suddenly made Wright a Class 1 antisemite? Obviously, for 20 years in his sermons and private thoughts shared with Obama this never managed to surface.

Its wonderful that Wright, as close as a mother (or was it grandmother) to Obama, never influenced Obama to feel the slightest twing of antisemitism and his rants against Israel for a genocide against the Palestinians were water off a duck’s back. That Obama managed to stay his tongue and not rebuke Wright over those 20 years is a testimony to Obama’s greatness.

With respect, you’re an idiot.

It’s safe to say that you don’t think Irish Catholic men are kiddie-fiddlers, despite decisive evidence of persistent misbehaviour — decades of it! — in that regard by central bits of the Church in Ireland. (I’m Catholic too, and while these scandals are a moral disaster, they’ve never so much as inclined me to leave the Church, not a little bit.)

Religious folk aren’t mindless zombies, following their preachers’ orders; and, in general, nor do they worship their clergy — they can and do distinguish religious observance from agreeing with clerical obiter dicta.

Don’t call me an idiot because you don’t qualify to call me one. I say that to give you a chance to try harder and qualify.

You rather stupidly miss this point

That Obama managed to stay his tongue and not rebuke Wright over those 20 years is a testimony to Obama’s greatness.

This point is that Obama didn’t have to be influenced by Wright but he could at least have objected to the antisemitic tones he must have used.

Further, over 20 years you may not adopt the same level of beliefs of those you regard as your pastor but its surely not credible that none of it stayed with Obama and created doubts in his mind. You don’t stay in a church unless what your pastor preaches has some resonance with your beliefs. He only left the church when the press outed Rev Wright.

What we can say is that we might watch Obama closely to see if his attitudes to Israel are tainted with the idea that they are indulging in Genocide against Palestinians.

This point is that Obama didn’t have to be influenced by Wright but he could at least have objected to the antisemitic tones he must have used.

This point is that Obama didn’t have to be influenced by Wright but he could at least have objected to the antisemitic tones he must have used.

Assumes facts not in evidence, thanks – the giveaway is the must have used formulation. There’s no direct evidence either way just what he did say during Obama’s time as a congregant – what little evidence there is, Obama’s, tells against the claim that he said anti-Semitic stuff – and even less of Obama’s interactions with him.

All you’ve got is (i) Obama’s attendance and (ii) Wright saying crazy stuff in the past, and, more recently, stupid anti-Semitic stuff. So let’s see how the smear of Obama works.

Further, over 20 years you may not adopt the same level of beliefs of those you regard as your pastor but its surely not credible that none of it stayed with Obama and created doubts in his mind. You don’t stay in a church unless what your pastor preaches has some resonance with your beliefs. He only left the church when the press outed Rev Wright.

Take contraception, torture, or the voting guides that the various Christian denominations issue every year. Church teaching and contraception isn’t unclear, and nor are the statistics: famously, Catholics contracept at about the same rate as non-Catholics. The teaching of the Church is that torture is never justified; here’s a poll in which 78% of white American Catholics think that torture is, at least sometimes, justified. (Non-religious people are actually slightly likelier to affirm the Catholic position on torture.)

A glance at the voting guidelines issued by mainstream Christian denominations in the UK and the USA over the last twenty years shows that what you might call the official Christian position is considerably to the left of either of the parties with a chance of winning (just look at what those guides have to say about immigration or economics). Nonetheless, most voters who take their religion seriously vote for parties considerably to the right of the positions developed in the voting guides.

(And the fact that there are Muslim clerics tirelessly preaching peace is never allowed, on these pages, to interrupt the anti-Muslim hatefest.)

Irish Catholics. Many of their pastors were child abusers; the abuse persisted for decades, sometimes with state support or connivance. Why aren’t you accusing Irish Catholics of being child-abusers themselves? Presumably because even you can see that it’s entirely possible for believers to have clergy with thoroughly unsavoury beliefs over a very long time without the believers either accepting or acting on those beliefs; particularly so when those beliefs aren’t doctrinal. Simply being in the same room or in close and persistent contact with someone of unsavoury beliefs is insufficient to transmit the belief; your model of belief by infection is a crock.

Why you’re unable or unwilling to see the analogous point in the Obama case is a matter for speculation, but I think it’s safe to say you’re either malicious or dumb — and the ‘or’ isn’t exclusive.

Obama didn’t just “sit” passively in Wright’s church. He considered Wright to be his mentor (“like an uncle to me”), and named one of his autobiographical books after one of Wright’s sermons (“The Audacity of Hope”). Yes, there were no great candidates to choose from in the 2008 ellections, but the fact that 70% of American Jews chose to ignore the facts that were out there and voted for Obama anyway, only shows that people make up their minds first, then pick the facts that match their preconceived notions and ignore all the rest.

Like David T says “Islamists” when he means “Muslims”

He even does it when talking about non-political things that Muslims do

Hello says: “I’m a tosser, I try to feed myself but, I keep missing my mouth and instead wind up sticking the tines of the fork into my fat face. I have holes in my face! Someone help me!”

Try sticking your head in an electric blender first.