Reverend Wright--There We Go Again

Reverend. Wright—There We Go Again

My daddy who was a minister used to say to me “son, it’s better to be silent and appear a fool than to speak up and remove the doubt.” Now that Rev. Wright has spoken out, it is easy to see how a learned man can be both a fool, an actor, and a politician all wrapped in one clothe.

Reverend Wright refuses to apologize for his despicable remarks about “God damn America.” Rather, he “goes off” on this all-purpose victim hood rant. It’s as if we’re watching an unsolved murder show on television—up pops the all-purpose black guy as suspect. Victim hood claims work the same way for many black Americans who commit acts or say things that are dead wrong, but they blame it on “racism.”

Reverend Wright is a very intelligent man. He had the ability to curse America for its wrongs by using pre-1970 rhetoric. He is stuck in his own time zone. As a black American of roughly his generation and as a Southerner, I fully understand how difficult it is to put behind the feelings of victim hood and to blame one’s faults and failings on the historical (and in all too many cases present) lack of opportunities. But this is not the whole story.

Reverend Wright has traveled to Africa and presumably to other parts of the world. He surely has seen the salutary affects and benefits that America has had on black Americans. Nowhere in his “God damn America” sermon did I hear him say how very proud he is (or should be) to be an American. You can’t have it both ways.

Correspondingly, he wants to have his religious and political cake...but retreat to his fanciful separation of religion and politics and cloak the press’s criticism of him in an attack on the “black church.” This is better than victim hood politics—it’s Carl Rove right wing political savvy rhetoric in action. Perhaps I’ve been deaf during the political firestorm that the good Reverend has stirred up but I simply do not remember the media’s attacking the black church.

Finally, what we see here is an egotistical man’s trying to protect and promote his own legacy and agenda by throwing his most politically successful parishioner “under the bus.”

Senator Obama has not thrown his former pastor under the bus. This says a lot about the character of the two men.
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©All Rights Reserved.Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1,
2008. You can read his blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

Who Won Pennyslvania?--One Word: McCain

Senator McCain won because the results in Pennsylvania does not change the nature of the race—it’s still Senator Obama’s to lose.

What Pennsylvania did was to legitimize the republicans “kitchen sink” attacks on Obama because Senator Clinton has given the republicans “cover” to make these negative attacks: scare tactics, attacks upon Obama’s leadership and his distaste for confrontation, e.g. politics as usual.

After the dust settles in Indiana and especially in North Carolina, where Senator Obama will hand Senator Clinton a worst drubbing than he took in Pennsylvania, the race will be right back where it was pre-Pennsylvania. Moreover, Clinton will have gone more negative, forcing Obama to retaliate—and McCain will win again.

More and more this race on the democratic side is presenting the Super delegates with the choice that they do not want to make: settle the nomination. But the sooner they do so the sooner democrats can define Senator McCain—including his off-color smiles, his age, his “let them eat cake” real belief, etc. She can't catch him in pledged delegates or the popular vote because even she agreed that Florida and Michigan would not count--oh, that was when she was the inevitable nominee.

The one hot-button issue that the republicans could have had, illegal immigration, does not exist because there is not a dime’s worth of difference on this issue between Obama and McCain.

So, the November election will pit an old man who has many lapses in memory against a middle-age man (he’s only seen as young because McCain is so old) who is so in love with his own rhetoric that he sometimes forget that it is a political campaign that he is in and not an intellectual pursuit. Obama too frequently lapses and forgets that he is a politician not an analysis.

If the old man wins, the country might go to hell in a hand basket since he wants to bomb Iran and to continue the American War in Iraq indefinitely. If the middle-age man wins, the youth, the intellectuals, and the blacks will hold their breath to see if any politician in American can truly make a difference.

Houston…we have a problem.

Stand by….

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©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

They All Lost: Senators Clinton, Obama & ABC

Last night in Philadelphia there wasn’t much love in this city of Brotherly Love.
Two things struck me:

The way the media keeps the Rev. Wright comments alive as if these folks expect that Senator Obama to explain more, to denounce more--again and again; and;
The way Senator Clinton is never asked to denounce Geraldine Ferraro’s comments, again and again and again.

Now, the media is questioning Obama about a 40-year old Weatherman Radical’s sitting on a charitable organization board where Obama also sat. Yet, the Clintons and others are forever busy harping on the media’s favoring Obama. The media did not question Clinton about the pardoning of two criminals of the Weatherman Radical group.

True, the media may favor Obama in the overall general reporting, but the truth is that the media does not have much negative to report on him, whereas the basket of bad apples of Clinton’s past is filled to the brim. However, where the “gut” issues—or hot-button issues—are concerned, there is no doubt that Hillary gets a pass. The only exception has been the media’s treatment of the Bosnia landing-under fire issue.

What did we learn from the 21st Debate between these two?

First, despite the hounding that both the George Stephanopoulos, a former employee of the Clinton Whitehouse, and Senator Clinton subjecting Barack to, it was Clinton, who I believe committed the major gaffes. Consider this:

1) Clinton committed grave political error by saying “yes, yes, yes,” Obama can win in the Fall against Senator McCain. This will undercut her “secret” argument to the super delegates that he can’t win. Gone now is her chief argument that she is more electable than Obama. (After all, she’s lost to him on the number of pledged delegates that have been won in the primaries, she’s lost twice as many states and she’s lost in the number of popular votes.) Polls now show her trailing almost two-to-one in such important areas as trustworthiness, truthfulness and electability. Her refusal to bite the bullet and be honest about what she has been telling the super delegates is still another example her lack of truthfulness.

2) The second gaffe was her apparent tone deftness when it comes to withdrawing from Iraq. She actually stated that she would totally ignore the generals’ advice on tactics—even if her withdrawal schedule created chaos and placed in greater danger the lives of Americans.

There is no doubt why she took the apparent foolhearted position of stating she’d totally ignore the advice of the generals: she was trying to outflank Obama. She has been outflanked by Obama on this issue since the campaign began and she thought, apparently, “I’ll be damned if I will be outflanked now before the whole nation.”
This was a big mistake. Obama immediately recognized it and took the opportunity—despite Clinton’s vaulted experience—to show her up.

Senator Obama stated that he would listen to the generals (as he must and as Clinton would have to were she elected) regarding tactics of withdrawal, but made it clear that it is up to the president to define the mission and up to the generals to execute it.

If positions were reversed, the press would have had a field day lamenting how naïve and inexperienced Obama was.

Yet, the Monday Morning Quarterbacking (pundits) said not a word about this serious gaffe of Senator Clinton. So, why do we hear this ongoing cacophony about the press’s being anti-Clinton? This is the real power of Clintonion Speak—Freud had a label for it: reaction formation.

This was a debate that nobody won: Obama lost because he permitted ABC and Clinton to keep him on the defensive; Clinton lost because she keep dishing the negative; and, ABC lost because it did not ask any questions but stooped to the sensational tidbits.
MSNBC and CNN never looked so good!
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©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

SPEAKING OF BRANDING

I watch and listen to the political campaigning now in full swing. It is common knowledge among the pundits that the democrats have won the battle of branding. But this win may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory since Senator McCain is the republican candidate. McCain is both a blessing and a curse for the Republican Party.

He is a blessing because he has successfully done his own branding: he is considered as a maverick, though he is not, but perception is not just a game in politics--perception is about the only game in politics. Having branded himself in the minds of the public and the pundits as a maverick, he is now free to court the right wing of his party. No republican can court the right wing of his party as unabashedly as McCain because the press is not going to paint him as a neo-con a la Bush, Cheney and Rice. Basically, Senator McCain so far has got a free ride from the press.

McCain’s branding himself as a maverick while at the same time participating in the biggest expansion of the federal government is in stark contrast to what the republican party is supposed to stand for: less government and fewer taxes. Indeed, less government and fewer taxes is the mantra of the modern Republican Party. But this party seems to have totally lost its way under President Bush: we have experienced a massive expansion (even if we discount the American War in Iraq) of the roll of the federal government, which indirectly undermines the core republican party’s principles of less government and fewer taxes; the massive expansion of the federal government will inexorably result in higher taxes on us and on future generations.

This conflict will play out in odd ways if Senator McCain is elected as our next President:
The American War on Iraq will continue to result in more and more spending, present and future tax increases, a continued expansion of the federal government and fewer programs to attack our crumbling infer structure, especially our educational system.

The “rubber will hit the road” if McCain is elected because his maverick persona will collide with the reality of a continued $12 billion dollars monthly expenditure just to maintain the American War in Iraq and this does not take into consideration the absolute necessity to refurbish our depleting and depleted military equipment or our lack of solders to maintain military readiness in other parts of the world where we have commitments—and enemies. For example, what would happen if China (after the Olympics) should decide to take back its rebel province, Taiwan? What would (could) we do?

For all of McCain’s vaulted independence, he will hew to the neo con’s agenda of throwing money at Iraq while telling his fellow citizens through his action to “eat cake” and enjoy it. Shackled by the American War in Iraq, his policies will not be different from the most rigid neo-con, except possibly on the environment. Perhaps the Sierra Club will consider endorsing him!

Twenty-five years from now we may look back upon Ron Paul’s solution of ending our foreign evolvement of maintaining over seven hundred basis in over a hundred and thirty foreign countries around the world as the wisest advice despite being derided during this political campaign.

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©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

The American War on Iraq: Two Realities

News! News! News!!! No change in our Iraq Policy! The Congressional Hearings on Iraq or the Charade of Congressional Hearings on Iraq?

A note at the onset about my use of terminology. Readers of my blog have commented on the fact that I do not use the words, “Iraq War.” That’s true, because it is not an Iraq War; it is the American War against Iraq.

We have been attacked only once in our history that resulted in a real war: Pearl Harbor. Yet, our citizens have been fed a constant lie about wars: The Mexican-American War was America’s War on Mexico, but we through a psychological need for war and an enemy, labeled it the Mexican-American War. The same for the Spanish-American War, we also started that war. By the time we get around to really dominating the world, we are so dishonest about our psychological need to commit aggression against other countries, some country, any country—just so long as we can call them the enemy—we no longer even consider our wars as having anything to do with us, e.g. Americans, just the other folks, the enemy: Like the Korean War, though the Koreans never attacked us; like the Viet Nam War, though the Vietnamese never attacked us, and now; like the Iraq War; we must hold our nose for the biggest fairy tale of all: the Iraq War, though the Iraqi never attacked us—we invaded them, remember?!

So, stop giving me grief about calling, excuse me, a spade a spade.

Supporters of America’s War on Iraq say, predictably, the following:

· The surge is working;
· Violence is down, meaning our boys are not dying as much as before (and frankly, we don’t give a damn about the Iraqis dying); and
· To pull out of Iraq would be irresponsible because we can’t leave Iraq as a failed state. Apparently they can’t govern themselves, which leaves any thinking person to ask, “how in the hell did the Iraqis govern themselves before we came to their “rescue”?
Anybody who has ever followed this debate will recognize the above as the “republican position."

Now, the “democats.”

· The surge has not worked as envisioned because it has not achieved it’s political objective; (Whose political objectives—ours or the Iraqis?)
· Iraqi troops have not stood up, so we can’t stand down. (Well, why should they? At least they seem to have enough sense to realize that they don’t have to run the risk of getting blown to bits by IED’s or sniper fire as long as they have the dumb, but aggressive, Americans to die for them! After all, they did not ask to be invaded, did they?)
· Political goals of the surge have not and will not be met as long as we are there—time to get out!
Anybody who has ever followed this debate will recognize the above as the “democratic position.”

The democrats say they can do nothing—they need 60 senators to cut off debate to enable them to get a law through to end the war. This is the lowest form of political blather because the democrats are playing games, just like the republicans, with American’s lives. The democrats don’t need 60 votes to cut off the funding. Yet, they are asking the American people to give them 60 senators so they will have the votes to end the American War in Iraq.

Of course, we Americans don’t have enough sense to ask the democrats this:
“If you and yours don’t have enough courage to cut off the funding and most assuredly thereby end our war, why should we believe that if we give you 60 senators, you would then (magically!) have the courage to end the American War in Iraq?

©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

Senator Hillary Clinton: At it Again?

When I first heard Senator Clinton tell the story of that poor woman in Ohio who lost her baby and her own life because she did not have insurance and $100 to pay the hospital before it would admit, I had to hold back tears. This was a very compelling story for Senator Clinton’s universal health care proposal. According to Senator Clinton, the woman went back to the hospital again and the hospital told the woman the same thing—no $100, no insurance=no treatment. Hillary claimed that the woman worked at a pizza parlor and did not have insurance. She admitted that a deputy sheriff told the story to her. As it turned out, the story was not true.
Now, there are two points to make at the onset:
· The Senator did not have first hand information regarding the veracity of the story; and,
· She did not have her staff check the story out before adopting it and repeating it in her campaign stump speech four times a day since March 20th .
In the instant case, Senator Clinton cannot blame the deputy because by repeating the false story several times, she adopted it. It’s like hearing a libelous story and then adopting it as your own by repeating it several times to others. The law interprets repeating the libelous statement as adopting the statement itself and the law makes the person who repeats such a libelous statement legally liable for slander, also.
Then, I heard the story about the Clintons’ release of their income tax. “Bravo,” I thought, she deserves credit for doing so!.
Not so fast: I then learned that the Clintons had tricked me again—no 2007 release! The Clintons were getting an extension in which to file their 2007 taxes!
Tricked again!
Then again, when I heard the news that the Clintons had given over ten million dollars to charity since leaving the White House, I thought “Bravo,” you gotta give them credit for being charitable because many couples or people who make that kind of money contribute far less to charity.
Tricked again!
Now, it has come out that the Clintons’ charitable contributions were to the CLINTON FOUNDATION!
Tricked again!
To say that the Clintons gave over ten million to charity is like their saying they were going to release their income taxes by April 15th or shortly thereafter, then obtaining an extension and releasing 2000- to 2006 returns. Hell, they had these returns all along. So, I was Tricked again!
The Clintons are simplely unbelievable. Since last October 2007 Senator Clinton has lied at least on four separate occasions about her plane making a corkscrew landing in Bosnia to avoid being fired up and then having to keep her head down and run for cover when landing on the tarmac—lied until caught red handed by a video of the allegedly dangerous under-fire landing.
Now, we have her saying she was against the American War in Iraq before Senator Obama!
Now, we have her saying that Mark Penn had been fired as her chief political strategist for his lobbying activities on behalf of the Colombian government and the trade treaty that Bush wants while at the same time receiving million of dollars from Hillary’s campaign as the Senator makes apparent resolute statements of her opposition to the treaty.
Tricked again!
We’ve just learned today that Penn is still on her staff; he is still participating in the morning strategy sessions—and apparently still getting paid.
Americans must ask themselves this: If they elect Mrs. Clinton, what will be the difference between her lying to us and President Bush’s lying to us?

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©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

Speaking of Martyrs: The 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. King

To be a martyr requires three things:

1. You have to actually achieve something against all apparent odds;
2. You must then set your sights on a daunting goal that will not be achieved during your lifetime but will be achieved after your death; and,
3. You must get yourself killed in a timely fashion.

This is the stuff of martyrdom. Take two post WWII examples:
JFK and King.

John F. Kennedy was a war hero, a senator, but these are not the qualities that he achieved against great odds.

What he achieved against great odds was overcoming the barriers of his religion (Catholic) to become the first President of Catholic faith. He also had to overcome the debacle of Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated for President by a major political party, the Democratic Party in 1928.

Next, Kennedy set his sights on the moon. This goal was not achieved during his lifetime, but it was achieved following the President’s assassination.

Next, the President was assassinated.

The King story is not different: Dr. King achieved a great deal before his untimely death: He ended segregated transportation, the Montgomery Boycott, he obtained the actual right (as opposed to the Constitutional right of the Fifteenth Amendment, passed specifically in 1870 to give black Americans the right to vote) by getting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed, and he was able to force white America to give blacks their citizenship right in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Next, King espoused kicking out the last leg of the table of legal segregation by the passing of a national fair housing act. This was partly due to the fact that JFK had refused to immediately sign an executive order, as he had promised during his campaign for President, to outlaw segregated housing in federal housing projects. The fair housing act was not passed during King’s lifetime-but President Johnson used King’s assassination to drum up political support to get the 1968 Fair Housing Law passed.

Next, prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Law, Dr. King was assassinated.

So, I guess the question is this: Why do we humans have to kill the prophet to realize the prophet’s dream?


© 2008 by Lenton Aikins
©All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided credit is given.
Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog: Go to: http://lentonaikins.com and click on blog.

The Fuss Over Judge Marvin Arrington's Action

Cable Television has again gone wild over Judge Arrington’s asking whites to leave his court while he lectured black defendants. On the surface this is understandable because we look to our courts to provide equal justice under the law. As a lawyer who have practiced criminal law and subsequently specialized in employment law, I can testify under oath that there is not equal justice under the law. As we used to say jokingly in criminal court, there is no justice—it’s all about “just us.” As in most jokes, this phrase contains a great deal of truth.

The exclusion of whites from the courtroom to lecture blacks, ostensibly because the Judge did not want whites to feel embarrassed and to feel as if he was talking down to them, is indefensible and Judge Arrington has apologized profusely for this blunder.
As a lawyer who practiced criminal law, I fully understand and appreciate Judge Arrington’s disgust at seeing blacks, particularly black men, go in and out of the courthouse’s revolving door. I used to be ashamed every time the calendar was called to see nineteen black men and one white man led into the courtroom, chained, by young white deputies who appeared to be no older than 21 years old. Many of these defendants shackled on the chain were broken, old, gray men. At first I wondered if these black men were embarrassed to be ordered around by men young enough to be their grandchildren. I soon realized those broken souls had long ago abandoned—spiritually, mentally, and physically any concepts of dignity, embarrassment, and humiliation….

However, what Judge Arrington said (and there are plenty news reports of that) should be music to the black and white community’s ears. He basically scolded black leadership and the black middle class for not doing more to help the lost people in their ghettoes.

As in the case of Reverend Wright, his action—but not his words—made whites uncomfortable. Whites have had their absolute way so long in this country that they take it for granted that they are not to be made uncomfortable. So, any black or white person—and particularly a black man—who says or does something that makes white people uncomfortable can expect to be excoriated by the white press. This is a fact that is not in dispute.

It is also an indication that the vast majority of whites in our country want to comfortably pass their entire life without hearing the raw and bitter truth.

I say, “get over it.”

Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.
Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008. You can read his daily blog at: http://lentonaikins.com

Is Senator Clinton Illusional?

Senator Clinton offered Senator Obama the golden opportunity to be her Vice President!

Senator Clinton has never immediately congratulated Senator Obama upon beating her in a primary or caucus election!

Senator Clinton arrogated to herself to set up a “threshold” to be crossed by Senator Obama before he is ready for President!

Senator Clinton maintained since at least last October 2007 that when she went to Bosnia her plane had to make a corkscrew landing and upon deplaning the crew was told to keep their heads down and run for cover!

Video of the so-called dangerous landing showed just the opposite, the little girl Ms. Clinton stopped to hug and listen to a poem the child had written for Ms. Clinton has stated that there was no such danger and troops present have been a little bit less kind to the good Senator.

Senator Clinton today, April 2, 2008, ran the well-known 3 a.m. ad but changed the subject to the economy and aimed it at Senator McCain as if she is the Democratic Party Nominee!

There are many other statements by her and her campaign that raise the point, neglected by the media, as to Mrs. Clinton’s grasp of reality.

For example, Senator Obama is ahead of her in popular votes, in pledged delegates and in states won. Yet she offers him the Vice President spot on her ticket! Her statements about Bosnia are clearly illusional; her “threshold” that Obama has to cross before he is ready to be President all point to a person deeply separated from reality.

The final straw, which compels me to write this, is her ad against Senator McCain as if she is her party's nominee.

Finally, the news media fail to see that Mrs. Clinton is almost totally separated from reality and rushes forward to give her kudos for having huevos or chutzpah. The facts are closer to an illusional person than to a person who has chutzpah!



Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008

The Reverend Wright vs. Geraldine Ferraro Comments

The purpose of this blog is not to compare Rev. Wright’s comments with those of Geraldine Ferraro’s. Rather, it is to note how differently the news media has treated these despicable comments.

Today, the news media (CNN, MSNBC) repeatedly brings up Rev. Wright. The Ferraro’s comments seemed to have long been forgotten. Yet, both of these old folk’s comments are indicative of beliefs that existed in another time zone.

Rev. Wright’s comments while uttered during one of his many “hell-fire-damnation sermons” were typical of black preachers who have long been at liberty to say anything they want to without any consequences. Proof of this fact is not hard to come by. Just today, Congressman Cleaver, a black minister who supports Senator Clinton, stated that Obama was going to win the nomination and the Presidency! He’s a Clinton supporter! Black ministers have acted like this every since they burst upon the national scene, witness Congressman and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell. Black ministers are the only blacks that can say and do pretty much what they want to because they are not beholden to white folks. Black people like this fact because their ministers can say and do things that they themselves cannot do—and keep a job!

Black people go to church to be put in a “feel-good,” to dress up, as most cannot do in their daily jobs, and to socialize far more than to simply worship. If the reader does not believe this simple statement, it can be empirically verified by attending any black church. Black parishioners dress far better than white parishioners to go to church. Black also “cut-up,” making more noise and shout-outs, “Amens,” more than white folks do. So, Rev. Wright’s inflammatory remarks should be—but they were not because white folks generally do not have a clue of what goes on in black churches—taken in a different context than Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks. Yet, the news media is still as of today showing Rev. Wright’s speaking and acting in a crazed manner.

Geraldine Ferraro’s comments that Barack Obama is where he is because he is a black man were not made—and indeed she staunchly defended them—in the heat of a shouting sermon with ridiculous references pitched in about “it’s in the Bible!” Geraldine Ferraro made her comments and defended them in a coldly calculating manner, without shouting and ranting. This makes her comments all the more reprehensible. Her comments were made with an uncharacteristic coldness of a person set within her time warped historical mentality. Rev. Wright is so used to engaging in such non-sensical, objectable, crazed hurtful comments (to whites) that he was probably surprised that anybody would have taken him seriously.

He only meant to shock his audience, get an “Amen” and then call it a day. In fact, I would not label him as a racist knowing him only from the few sound bites the media has exposed us to. This may sound strange to whites, but look at his subsequent actions: he went on a cruise with practically all whites, he then returned to Chicago and purchased a home in an exclusive white, guarded-gate community. In other words, his actions are diametrically opposed to his flamboyant rhetoric. Rhetoric and disparate action is another characteristic of black ministers. A significant number of black ministers have affairs with women in their congregation and retain their positions.

Ms. Ferraro’s subsequent actions have been scrupulously in line with her expressions and apparent feelings: she defended her statements, became hostile and bitter at the media and apparently everybody else, calling those disagreeing with her “racist,” and otherwise behaving as if the news media and blacks forced her to say what she said. Rev. Wright served his country honorably in the Marines—a much tougher assignment than being given the preferential treatment given to Ms. Ferraro of being selected the first woman to run as Vice President of the democrat party.

The media, however, quickly forgot her comments while even Clinton’s campaign is yet trying to woe super delegates by invoking the Rev. Wright controversy and justifying this Machiavellian crassness by asserting that the republicans are going to do so if Senator Obama gets the nomination! There is no evidence that the Obama campaign is exploiting Geraldine Ferraro’s comments for its advantage. But the news media has failed to mention that fact.

Lenton Aikins, Ph.D., J.D.Dr. Aikins has traveled widely, lived abroad in Europe and Latin America, recently spending three years in Costa Rica as Director of a Spanish Language school. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from University of Southern California, a Juris Doctor in Law from Western State University, College of Law. He is the author of many articles and of While African Americans Slept: Leadership by Parasites, now available at: http://lentonaikins.com, and available in all bookstores July 1, 2008