I wish somebody would explain to me the outrage over what Jeremiah Wright has said in his sermons. Has anybody on the left written in defense of Wright?
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Practically everything you could ever want to know about the Wright controversy - seen at 30,000 feet - is covered in Chomsky's venerable and still spot on essay: "The Responsibility of Intellectuals".
<http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19670223.htm>
Rev. Wright, speaking to his black congregates who're less easily fooled about the US' role in the world than many of their white cousins, drifted off-message and had to be harshly criticized. Harshly criticized, of course, by American media culture, obediently carrying out its role of discourse restriction, but also, as a matter of vital importance to his political chances, harshly criticized by Sen. Obama.
What message did Rev. Wright stray from?
That the US, as is, is the best of all possible outcomes for a nation state and, to be Obama rhetoric-specific, that the US is "perfectible" (about that, see - <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080317/005320.html>)
Any serious challenge to this happy view is unacceptable since it steps outside the borders of our simulacrum.
.d.