POLITICS AND NATURE

To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude

that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions,

and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations

and by the bitterness of their invectives.

Alexander Hamilton; Federalist #1

     Fiery Oratory. Antagonistic analogies. Unapologetic damnation. Sins of the past waging war on the hope of the future. Obama's preacher said some nasty things and the invective aimed at the hopeful Democratic front runner is loud and clear. He denounced the Reagan coalition, conservative pundits, and the original failures of the Revolution!

     He has been attacked by his opposition as pandering to appease the black community, denouncing his own grandmother, and elevating America's racial divide into the forefront of a presidential campaign. Unfortunately, he did not do any of this. He took on the issue confronting his campaign in what I found to be straight-forwardness and clarity.

The Anger

     The past has a great deal of bearing on our present and it will affect our choices in the future. The words of this minister have a place in the campaign, just like the words of Robertson, Falwell, et. al. who said the same things but justified their misplaced anger over 911 and Katrina on the backs of homosexuals and others of "liberal" ilk they claim are the cause of God's disgust with our nation. Obama's preacher blamed whitey and highlighted our ill-gotten gains and perverse reactions to foreign policy. All over the discussion over Obama, the spotlight is shown on the preacher's damnation of America. 

     Both sides are misguided. It is so very hard to disseminate the worth of this issue over the outrage. As one who has taken the other side's god-laden rhetoric to task for its judgment and confusion of God's will with their own, it would be disengenuous for me to ignore this blasphemous attack on our nation from this angry liberal preacher. It seems fair to me to say there is no wrath of God raging against our society. Our ills can be fixed. They are human caused and there is a great deal of anger on both sides. Let's discuss our differences more rationally.