!*"Who's Uncle is Really Crazy?" by Mumia Abu-Jamal

col. writ. 5/1/08
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

When conservative hit-shows first began raising questions about Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the Democratic candidate essentially played down the relationship, suggesting that Wright was like the 'crazy uncle' common to many families.

Due to the pressure of the 24 hour news cycle, we have come a long way from there, to here.

While Sen. Obama no longer refers to him in this way, it's more than worthwhile to examine just what the Rev. Wright did say, which set off the belfry of mad bats who hold forth from the dark universe of right wing radio and TV commentators.

Among the Rev. Wright's "controversial" comments were these:

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens have come home to roost...Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant...An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised..."

Rev. Wright's words on how America has treated her darker citizens were also termed "controversial." These are some of them:

"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, and put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America-that's in the Bible - for killing innocent people."

On the role of the U.S. government overseas, Wright preached the following:

"Governments lie. The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment...The government lied about bombing Cambodia...The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North...The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9-11-01 and operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie."

I don't know about you, but I've not heard one statement that isn't categorically, historically, and absolutely true. As my good country buddy, Bro. Willie might ask, "What the problem is?"

Obama's response, served up to placate the fascistic right, sounded like an apology: "I reject outright statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue."

The problem isn't that Rev. Wright was crazy, but that he spoke the cold, sober truth. That's the problem.

The US nationalists demand that anyone who states such truths be 'denounced.'

When will a candidate emerge who will denounce imperialism, and the endless ruinous wars against much of the Third World, for the profit of corporations here?

If this election is any measure, no time soon.

Who's uncle is really crazy? Uncle Jeremiah or Uncle Sam?

--(c) '08 maj