Sunday, March 16, 2008

Barack Obama's Shiloh Connection

Did you know that there is a Shiloh connection to the current Democratic frontrunner for his party's presidential nomination?

Here:

...the first sermon Obama heard from Wright, the source ultimately of the title of Obama's second book and one of the central themes of his presidential campaign:

The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel — the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God [in the Tabernacle Courtyard here at Shiloh and there was only one rival, Peninah - YM]. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope.

“The painting depicts a harpist,” Reverend Wright explained, “a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill…


Well, that's an interesting way to get from Shiloh to Sharpesville.

And, at another opportunity, what else did BO's pastor say?

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost,"


This, in reference to Sept. 11.

Source

Well, if I was an Afro-American preacher, I'd say that the statement about "state terrorism" is inflammatory, mendacious and downright meanspirited and sho' 'nuf is a damnable lie. It is a blank check for evil men to kill innocents.

Wright is all wrong.

How bad, then, is Obama?

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