Wright is Wrong: It's not about the Black Church

Although I have found Rev. Wright's media tour to be both enthralling and edifying, I disagree with his comments that people are attacking not him, but the black church itself.

To say that the media is attacking the black church is to imply that the media is primarily motivated by racism.  But I don't think the media is really offended one bit by Wright's views on America, race relations, HIV/AIDS, Isreal, Farrakhan and the rest.  They know damn well he is not the caricature they have drawn in the public's eye.

I think there are only three words spoken by Jeremiah Wright repeatedly over the last several days that truly offend the press: "Corporate-owned media"

This is why they find him threatening.

I think there is a smokescreen in the air.  We may watch the press and think their fight with Obama, collaterally engulfing Wright, is driven by their prejudices about race, religion, culture, etc.

But I think the real reason the media does this to Obama has more to do with money, greed, and power.

They know Obama is the real deal.  He really will help the workers in this country, and left unchecked, he has the political skill to win a mandate to change the policies that have widened income inequality in America.  

The corporate media are singular in their greed.  Charles Gibson thinks the middle class earns somewhere around 200K/year and cries crocodile tears about how raising the capital gains tax will affect working people.

These corporate media fat cats have a vested interest in the status quo.  The old politics of scandal, militarism, culture war, and distraction feeds the insatiable beast of the 24 hour tabloid news cycle.  The exectutives of Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp, and General Electric who own the traditional media want a corporatist republican or a DLC democrat to protect their entrenched interests, not a progressive economic populist who might challenge it.

They could care less about black and white...they only care about one color: green...as in money.

They throw fire on the race and culture wars not only to generate money from ratings from freakshow, but also to get people to vote against their economic interests and keep the media (the real elites) rich, powerful, and unaccountible.

The extent to which they magnify distractions for a given candidate is proportional to the degree to which each candidate fights for economic equality.  

Obama is at his core a true economic progressive and the media try to silence him with nonstop feeding frenzies and distraction  - Druggate, Snubgate, Rezkogate, not-black-enough-gate, too-blackgate, secret-muslimgate, Reagangate, NAFTAgate, talk-to-our-enemiesgate, Pakistangate, Michellegate, Wrightgate, Flag pingate, Hand-over-heart-gate, Bittergate, Ayersgate, Wrightgate redux, etc, etc.  And after all that, they have the nerve to throw in "media-too-easy-on-Obamagate" for good measure as well.

Do they lie as much about any other candidate?

McCain is an tempramentally unstable warmongering corporatist who plays a reformist maverick on TV -  but his foreign policy gaffes, policy flip-flops, questionable associations, lobbyist scandals, endless hypocrisies etc get virtually no echo chamber effect by the press.  If anyone attacks him, it's a one day story focusing on how bad the people are for attacking Saint McCain.  

Hillary is a DLC Democrat who gets treated somewhere in between McCain and Obama.  The media occasionally goes into feeding frenzy on Bosnia and Drivers Licenses and she gets some sexist crap, but they let the Clintons get away with 95% of their bad behavior.  Why?  I think because the corporate media know Hillary's progressive schtick the Primary is just an act - but they still prefer McCain over any Dem.  And now, to help Hillary is to help McCain and so Hillary is getting a lot of props in the press right now.  

I think they go after Obama and Wright so hard not because of their church, but because Obama is creating a movement that might actually change the status quo to which the media elites cling.  

That's why the elite corporate media is so hell-bent on turning the tables on Obama to cast him as the elitist.

That's why they are so hell-bent on taking a candidate that transcends race and using guilt by association to ghettoize him.  

That's why the gas bags of cable television blow on racial dog whistles day after day.  

That's why they endlessly concern troll Obama's candidacy.

It doesn't matter if some of them like Obama personally, their hits on him are business, plain and slimple.

In fact, I bet most of the traditional media folks are personally cosmopolitan, tolerant people who respect different points of view.  And many of the reporters and pundits are but pawns and sell-out frontmen for their nameless, faceless corporate masters.  

The new oligarchs of our society appeal to the racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic sentiments in society in order to get poor working class voters to support an economic agenda that favors the powerful elites over the people.  They wish to scare these voters about Obama's culture because they don't want working people to be united.

To use an anology, the media are not alcoholics; they are merely the bartenders who knowingly serve them.

The corporate media fear Obama big time.  They know that he has the potential not only to win, but to win with a mandate of an awakened American electorate.  The fat cats don't want things to change because they love their comfortable existences more than they love America itself.  No number of dead soldiers and bankrupt families will deter them from their need for hegemony.

They call people like Obama and Wright, who actually work to make America better, unpatriotic while they enable endless war, shipment of jobs overseas, and an unfair system of taxation that runs 95% of the country into the ground while they get richer and richer.

So, yes, Rev Wright...they are technically attacking the black church.  But the reason they do so has little to do with race or religion.  

It has everything to do with money, greed, and power.

•  Tip Jar

  by RKA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:20:31 PM PDT

  •  Another Jerry Wright diary?

    Yawn.

    by JR Hawks on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:22:11 PM PDT

  •  I actually READ your diary. And I agree. n/t

    by second gen on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:26:31 PM PDT

    •  Thanks! n/t

      by RKA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:35:37 PM PDT

•  okay.

  How is Rev. Wright wrong, exactly?  Did I miss something?

  by bugscuffle on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:24:58 PM PDT

  •  He's technically right, but overall wrong...

    He thinks they attack him to attack the black church.

    I argue that they attack him, the black church, and Obama for underlying reasons that have nothing to do with race.

    All this stuff about race, class, elites, etc...is a big diversion from an economic fight, in my opinion.

    by RKA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:32:46 PM PDT

•  They are not attacking black churches

  They are attacking Obama.  If Obama wasn't running for President, they would not be focusing this attention on Wright.  Although I agree with much of what he says, Wright is completely wrong on this presumption and because of that he doesn't see that all he is doing is hurting the Obama campaign.  That being said, we all need to calm down.

  by Joefdb on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:25:01 PM PDT

  •  There are pros and cons...

    I think conflating the attack on him with an attack on the black church has some benefit in terms of putting the media on notice that they can't do this sort of thing with impunity.

    But I think we all should know that this fight about race is a proxy war over money and power.

    by RKA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:35:17 PM PDT

  •  You May Not Perceive It As An Attack On Black

    churches, but many, possibly most black people do.

    There's a reason the UCC has publicly reaffirmed its support of Trinity and Rev. Wright.  There's a reason the Detroit NAACP and other groups are rallying to support Rev. Wright.  And there's a reason (media lies) that some have threatened Rev. Wright and his church.

    FYI.

    by majcmb1 on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 02:10:18 PM PDT

    •  The point I am making is WHY they attack...

      They attack the black church because they fear Obama's economic agenda.  They are using race-baiting as a distraction.  We should fight back, of course, but I think we need to understand the enemy's motivations in order to defeat them.

      by RKA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 04:21:08 PM PDT

•  Right or wrong isn't the problem

  The problem is the sound bites and images the MSM is harvesting from all this that paint a stick picture portrait for white Middle America of an angry black man, and attach him to Barack Obama.

  As Reagan knew, it's not words, not policies or positions or logic that's important, it's images.  The pictures that show up on the evening news are what plant the seeds in the minds of the voters.

  And unfortunately, Rev. Wright comes across as a type like Al Sharpton, who makes large sections of white America frightened.

  Outside of our little fishbowl here, that's a problem.

  Believe me, it pisses me off, too.

  by fbc21ca on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:46:40 PM PDT

•  Although I agree with your conclusion...

  I don't agree with all of your arguments.  I think many AA's feel the Black Church is under siege, and the vehicle of that assault is Rev. Wright.  This is the impression I get when I occasionally listen to Rev. Al's show or Joyner's.  Whether this is a rational fear is up for debate, but I do think that many people feel this way.

  I do completely agree with the rest of your analysis, though.

  And this is the last Rev. Wright diary I read, cause I am totally tired of this tired story.

  by CeeusBeeus on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:48:14 PM PDT

•  Yes, they are clearly trying to influence the

  election to serve their own interests primarily -- they can dish out whatever narrative they want, and then can choose what response (if any) they will "allow" from the other side of the story/issue -- and can usually frame that the way they want as well. It's a monopoly of power and influence, and Barack Obama and his supporters are threatening to derail their comfy system. Too f'ing bad -- if Obama doesn't get into office because of some ridiculous side issue (Wright, etc.), there will be a REVOLUTION. The people have crossed the line -- we demand a government by the people, for the people again, and Obama is the candidate with the best shot at delivering for all of us.

  by Kim from Pgh PA on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 01:59:29 PM PDT

•  important but misleading

  I like your diary and agree with you completely but the Rev. Wright bit will lead to people not reading it cause it doesn't accurately reflect the point you are trying to make.

  It does have everything to do with money, greed, and power. McCain or Clinton, they don't challenge the establishment. If they can just get Obama out of the race, they'd be satisfied with either.

  And yes, I'll say it even though Obama won't, it is also about race and racism. If it wasn't why would Hillary be spending so much time trying to paint Obama as the "radical, angry, black man?" The only ones playing the race card are Hillary and the media. But they are doing it in effect to get the outcome that they want, Obama out of the race. This is what Clinton supporters couldn't grasp after SC. Almost no one was calling the Clintons personally racist; they were arguing that the Clintons were willing to use racism to divide the electorate to get what they wanted. By now, for me at least, the line between being racist and using racism has been obscured when it comes to the Clintons. I am shamed, saddenned, and disgusted.

  My guess is that if Obama doesn't "win" the dem nomination so will a lot of people. The pundits keep talking about how great this primary has been and how it has brought in all these new voters. But if Clinton "steals" the nomination, the message of politics as usual will probably lead to higher voter apathy over the long run than we have experienced lately.

  by batgirl71 on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 02:10:43 PM PDT

•  Corporate Media

  Some high ranking Democrats need to address the role of media in influencing elections. The media only needs to influence a small portion of last minute or undecided voters.

  Unfortunetly, these voters are the ones most susceptible to media manipulations.

  Anger against the media is at a very high point now.Remember, many Clinton supporters are angry too.
  Democratic leaders should jump on this or they will always play Alan Colmes to the Republican's Sean Hannity.

  by stanjz on Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 02:19:53 PM PDT