Thread: Voting McCain?

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

We're just still in disagreement on this I guess. I still don't believe it's so much his "hating his country" than it is his hating the people that run it and are representative of his country in a global context. Ultimately, it's much harder for me to give credence to this position, I know, because Wright's words can't easily be defended. I still don't think they were as black and white as they've been interpreted, though.

I don't think that's quite right, either. While he may hold certain factions of government and business more responsible than others, and more than the average person, I don't think he was saying that there's someone we could crucify and make it all better. His intent seems clear to me: to call attention to the U.S.'s sins as a check on national self-righteousness and inspire his parishioners to work for change. While again I think he has some wacky ideas on who's to blame and how things went down, and obviously had ulterior motives in his more recent statements, I have to agree with his main point:

American individuals and institutions have made it clear by their actions--from the Indian holocaust and black slavery through the Spanish American War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Iran Contras, long disregard of AIDS, Rodney King, our conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Jena Six--that the value of one's life is contingent upon the color of one's skin and the weight of one's purse, both at home and abroad. So long as we continue to act on that basis, groups and individuals who we declared our enemies before they were born will rise against us. I don't mean that it's the fault of individuals in the U.S. that Saudi extremists took down the Towers, just that we helped to create the world conditions where it could happen, and our actions since have been in keeping with what got us here, virtually assuring more 9/11s to come.

Karma is neither magical nor judgemental; it's simply a recognition that actions and their consequences are often similar in kind, and the extent of causal relationships radiating from any given action can never be known in full or with certainty.

Agreed. ^

[Edit: Btw, UM, I don't know if it's been stated in this thread or not but, what are your feelings on the video in the OP?"]