Roland Martin Blog hot with Obama/Wright opinions and info
Categories: African-American, Media, Politics and Elections, Religion and Faith
Written By: Shawn Williams
Check out this post Anderson Cooper’s 360 blog. It was written by Roland Martin who has some excellent (excellent) writing regarding the whole Rev. Jeremiah Wright flap. It’s a little more about the 9/11 sermon.
Make sure to visit Roland’s Blog where he asks Why didn’t Hannity blast Jack Kemp about his praise for Farrakhan? He also asks Is Sean Hannity man enough to debate me? I also like Jack Kemp pimp slaps Sean Hannity over Rev. Wright, Obama drama!
Abe, I haven’t been able to find anything definative on the God **** America sermon though I urge you to Google “etymology of condemn.” I have been told that the sermon was about condemnation and an etymological look at the word.
You will see that Google returns lots of ‘damn’ websites, even saying that ‘damn’ was probably a milder form of the word condemn at one time.
I think, and I haven’t heard the sermon yet, that Rev. Wright -who speaks 5 languages and was offered teaching positions at Harvard and Yale after retirement- went too deep for many Americans. I’m not saying that he was right, but I am asking folks to at least consider his heremeneutics and homiletics in their judgement of Dr. Wright.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Here we go again Roland,
They are getting ready again to crucify Rev. Wright and Sen. Obama!
What can we do to help?
March 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hello, I say we keep speaking truth to lies and not be afraid of the tactis that the media are playing. And to keep our hearts and minds on the direction to which God wants us to go. As I read in another blog ‘we must proctect our leadership better’. By publicly being in support of the truth as I have seen really makes me feel good about people that are using their position to do just that. Thank you Mr. Roland Martin for speaking out and not being afraid. Keep it up.
!E!
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 am
Roland was a TOTAL SELL-OUT
His numbers said one thing….
His comments another…
FLIP FLOPPER, that’s probably what he wears with his suits under the desk
SHAMEFUL!
October 9th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Sorry if off subject. But, I’m fed up with JOE-SIX-PACK, his wife, mother, sister, and father. They continue to remind black people of the struggles that their ancestors been through with the races remarks and slurs we continue to get from John and Sara Trouble’s campaign followers.
Allow me to tell you who JOE SIX-PACK is in my view; J.S.P.- is the redneck, racist,”sister loving”, feeble minded,moose eating, animal sexing Clan!
If the McCain, Palin ticket continue to promote these racial tensions they gonna get a lot more than they can bargain for.They want the nation to stay divided. They and other conservative whites feel that the blacks play in this country is as servants and we could never be leaders.So with that said,how can any black person be a republican?
This isn’t the late 50’s early 60’s when black people had no choice. We have a choice and a voice now,we must use it!
Now let’s raise this issue. Sara continues to ask why Barak Obama continues to bring up the past, but it’s her that repetitiously continue to tie Barak to the past.
John McCain’s part in the Keating 5 scandal is a factor. He was pardoned because he discontinued his part in the scandal.That’s no different than a man driving his friend to a robbery and then taking off as the robbery was in progress. He will still catch a complicity charge until he turns states evidence for a lesser sentence. Then he involves himself with his own left wing, extremist organization
McCain went out and found someone just as prejudice as himself to carry on his ancestors hatred towards non-whites. It’s sad that a number of “Americans”has this same mentality!
I’m sorry, but a lot of these things need to be said!-So let’s talk about guilt by association and finger pointing.- non-white people. let’s not leave out the Jeffery Dahmers, the Sirhan Sirhans,The john Wilks Booths. There are many others ,but a lot of you “Americans”continue relish in their beliefs.How many white Americans in this country family members or themselves were K.K.K. members who bombed churches killed a countless number of black and other non-white people? here’s a little about a friend of some of you that alot of people may not know,and he was a politician! How can this be?
David DukeAKA David Ernest Duke
Born: 13-Jul-1950
Birthplace: Tulsa, OK
Gender: Male
Religion: Christian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Activist, Politician
Party Affiliation: Republican [1]
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Former KKK Grand Wizard
David Duke is probably America’s most famous unapologetic racist and anti-Semite. “Our clear goal,” he has said, “must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests.” He opposes integration, calls himself a “white nationalist”, and his political perspectives are colored almost entirely by race.
His father was an engineer for Shell Oil, his mother was an alcoholic, and his family employed a black maid Duke called Pinky, who was always careful to use the toilet in the utility room, not the home’s main toilet. Growing up in Louisiana, he rooted for the South in every Civil War movie, and came to believe that the South had been right. At 13, he was reading racist material from the New Orleans office of the White Citizens Council, and at 17 he joined the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
At Louisiana State University he founded the White Youth Alliance. He was active in the school’s ROTC program, winning the Outstanding Cadet Award before being booted from the group for his racist activism. He was known on campus as the guy who wore his Nazi uniform while handing out hate literature.
He was elected Grand Wizard of the KKK, and held that office from 1974-78. He was something of a moderate for the Klan, referring to himself as the group’s “National Director” instead of Grand Wizard, wearing a suit and tie instead of the traditional white robes, and urging members to mainstream the group by getting “out of the cow pasture and into hotel meeting rooms.” He established the National Association for the Advancement of White People in 1980.
In 1988 he ran in several Democratic Presidential campaigns, winning no primaries and gaining substantial votes only in the South, but the campaign was given widespread media coverage, which made Duke famous. In 1989 he switched parties and was elected to the Louisiana House as a Republican
October 9th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
John McCain
John McCainAKA John Sidney McCain III
Born: 29-Aug-1936
Birthplace: Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone
Gender: Male
Religion: Baptist [1]
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Politician
Party Affiliation: Republican
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: US Senator from Arizona
Military service: US Navy (1958-81, Capt.)
John McCain III attended a private boarding school, where he was nicknamed “McNasty” for his willingness to fight. Later, at the US Naval Academy, he gained a reputation as a ladies’ man, complained that he was picked on by his commanding officer, and graduated 894th out of 899 in his class.
His father was a four-star admiral in the US Navy, as was his grandfather. The first Admiral McCain was commander of all US carriers in the Pacific during World War II, stood at attention on the USS Missouri when the Japanese surrendered, and died of a heart attack four days later. The second Admiral McCain was CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command) of all US forces in Vietnam. A McCain ancestor served on George Washington’s staff during the Revolutionary War, and after the family had relocated to Mississippi several McCains fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. His mother, a wealthy oil heiress, has been described as “the Auntie Mame of Navy wives.” The family still chuckles about the day she went on an errand to buy a new dress, and came home with a new Mercedes instead. A bit further up the family tree, McCain’s great-great grandfather William Alexander McCain owned a Mississippi plantation and 52 slaves, until his death fighting for the Confederacy in the US Civil War.
After flight training, young McCain flew A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft in the Vietnam war. On his 23rd mission, an October 1967 attack on a Hanoi power plant, his plane was shot down, and McCain, with three broken bones, was imprisoned in the famous “Hanoi Hilton.” Under duress, he was interviewed by French reporters, and told them he was treated well. In an interview broadcast as propaganda in Hanoi, McCain said he had bombed civilian targets. He was offered early release because of his father’s high rank, and McCain says he considered it but declined. After that, he was tortured for four days, until he signed a confession: “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.” Of his more than five years in prisoner-of-war camps, nearly two of those years were spent in solitary confinement.
After the war McCain needed extensive surgery to repair the clumsy, cruel medical treatment he had received from his captors, and he underwent years of physical therapy to be able to walk normally. He remains unable to lift his arms over his head. His military medical records show that military doctors were impressed by his quick psychological recovery. For his military service, McCain won the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
Before his tour of duty in Vietnam, McCain had married a model from Philadelphia, Carol Shepp. While he was imprisoned, she was in an auto wreck, thrown through her car’s windshield and left seriously injured. After his return to America, McCain had an extramarital affair with Cindy Lou Hensley, whose father owned Hensley & Co., a Phoenix-based liquor company that is the nation’s second largest Anheuser-Busch distributor. McCain and Shepp were divorced in 1980, and 44-year-old McCain married his 26-year-old millionaire mistress the following month. In 1981 McCain left the Navy, signing his discharge papers the same day he buried his father at Arlington National cemetery, and the newlywed McCains settled in her home state of Arizona, where he went to work for his father-in-law at Hensley & Co. Months later, when Congressman John J. Rhodes announced his retirement, McCain quit the brewery business and ran for Congress. After two terms in the House, he ran for Senate in 1986.
He is often described as a “political maverick” willing to take positions at odds with his party leadership. Calling it “the biggest rip-off since the Teapot Dome Scandal”, he was the only Republican Senator to vote against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and he was the only Republican Senator to oppose the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, which ended many farm subsidies. Unlike many Republicans, he expresses concerns over global warming and other environmental issues, and he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
He was cozy with savings and loan swindler Charles Keating, taking more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and accompanying him on several vacations. What Keating received in return from McCain was never specifically nailed down, but McCain was admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee for showing “poor judgment”. McCain used his own ethical problems to recreate his image by calling for campaign finance reform, co-sponsoring the popular if somewhat toothless McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act of 2002.
McCain lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000, but emerged the victor in 2008’s primaries. He chose as his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
In 2000, McCain was sharply critical of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, but he has grown much more cordial with such leaders of the religious right, and even delivered the commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University in 2006.
He has been a solid supporter of most of the Bush-Cheney agenda, from the PATRIOT Act to the war in Iraq to his opposition of gay marriage and legal abortion. He briefly questioned whether the nation could afford Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy, but has since said that in retrospect he thinks it stimulated the economy. He opposed the Bush administration’s relaxation of rules against torture, even pushing through legislation reiterating that America would not torture prisoners, but McCain did not complain when Bush added a signing statement noting that the new law would not apply to his administration or his orders.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Why havent we heard more about McCain’s affiliation with Rev John Hagee and Sara Palin’s Witchdoctor Pastor. It all needs to be on the table now. As well as his wife’s business dealing with Charles Keating 11 years after the scandal. Go to the Huffington Post and read all about it.
Sara Palin and John McCain need to be disqualified for what they are doing in this race. It would be better for them to fix the election and win than for anything to happen to Obama and/or his family. This country will be worst than when Dr King was assinated and the blood will be on their hands. How do these people sleep at night? McCain it is over take it like a solider.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
P.S. John we are not prisoners, we are citizens. He’s to old and racist for me. He voted twice against King’s holiday. Wake up everybody, we have got to get out everybody we know that is eligible to vote and take them to the polls if necessary.
PLEASE VOTE!!!!!!!!
October 11th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
‘The Arizona Senator also made a new confession when…asked …why he voted against a holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. “I said at the time because a national holiday, the expense, etcetera, and it was wrong,” he said. McCain said he was proud to have been part of a later effort to recognize him in Arizona and then added, “Back in the 80’s I voted, I wouldn’t say for apartheid but I voted in a way that was questionable and then I went to South Africa…I came back as an outspoken opponent of apartheid… We all have to grow and mature and if we are wrong on an issue then we have to admit it.”’
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/10/politics/fromtheroad/entry4007056.shtml
McCain can self-correct, as the comments above and events of the past week make evident..
I’m convinced he will “grow and mature”, and vote for Obama in November.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Roland, I am so disappointed in your response to the Joe Biden foot in mouth disease on CNN’s 360 with Anderson Cooper tonite. You never once mentioned the fact that Joe said that he could be tested but he would show “the steel he has in his spine”. That takes on a whole different view of his comments. Jamal on CNN Headline was the only commentator that went beyond the sound bite. You had various opportunities to bring this up and u slept it, why? Yes Joe was out of line to get off message but it was more to it than is being played out by the other side. Step it up my brother we only have 13 more days and with Barack being with his ailing Grandmother for 2 out of the 13, we need folk like u to bring to the National media with conviction. Keep sticking it to Bay LOL.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
By Tim Wise
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do–like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor–and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college–you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a “light” burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.