So, I got this response about the Bill Moyer’s article on Jeremiah Wright and his recent comments that led Obama to throw the Reverend “under the bus” to avoid being tied to Wright. Being me, I couldn’t refrain replying cause that’s just who I am.
"Many years ago...there was talk of how HIV came to be. I believe that
the conspiracy theory of HIV of a government backed program to develop
specific pathogens to race was floated by individuals in the activist
community...this is not new ideas except for the fact that the corporate
media has decided to give it some air time."
My reply:
Just to clarify - the intent of posting this article wasn't to support
or deny any conspiracy but to point out Moyers' recollection of the slow
response of the government in the 1980's when HIV was spreading
throughout the gay community and considered a gay disease. Reagan's
administration had little urgency despite growing evidence the virus was
deadly and spreading at alarming rates. As for the etiology of HIV,
"science" hasn't found conclusive evidence to support any one theory.
The main point of this post was to demonstrate the incongruent reaction
of the mainstream media to Jeremiah Wright's comments in comparison to
those of the white racists associated with guys like McCain, Nixon and
other white "leaders".
The implication something was "floated" by any group wasn't the main
point of the article or my comments. It detracts from the government's
experimentation on unknowing subjects in alleged research of disease. It
also deflects from the message Reverend Wright's comments aren't as
outlandish as the media has portrayed them given the history of the feds
in experimenting on unknowing citizens; many who were non-white. The two
examples given in Moyers' article aren't inclusive and don't include the
use of LSD on unknowing subjects, the involuntary sterilization of black
females and the uses of Agent Orange, DU and other agents known to have
lethal effects.
It would be easier to think those in power wouldn't intentionally harm
innocent citizens to accomplish whatever secretive goals it has but that
just isn't the case. And if a black minister implies there is an evil
underbelly of government that has no regard for the marginalized the
backlash by the mainstream is blatantly racist.
I certainly won't say Reverend Wright is MLK or Malcolm but I do
remember the same reactions to both when they dared to speak the truth
about racism and oppression. The "masters" don't want the ugly truths of
the "plantation AmeriKa" to be revealed. It might wake up the sheep.
Sunday, May 11
Another Look At Reverend Wright's Comments
Someone sent me this article about Wright from Bill Moyers. While not a big fan of Moyers, I think the recollection about governmental failure to intercede with HIV early on and the syphyllis "experiments" with blacks touch upon the denial of the issues Reverend Wright has had the temerity to bring up in the "national" press.
Published on Sunday, May 4, 2008 by PBS.org
Beware The Simplifiers
by Bill Moyers
I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" "Everyone, he said. "Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.
Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known - scholarly, smart, and gentle in person - uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.
But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.
That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.
But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media - the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help - people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong - white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".
Bill Moyers is a journalist and host of PBS' Bill Moyers Journal.
© 2008 PBS
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/04/8707/
And here is the rest of it.
Published on Sunday, May 4, 2008 by PBS.org
Beware The Simplifiers
by Bill Moyers
I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" "Everyone, he said. "Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.
Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known - scholarly, smart, and gentle in person - uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.
But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.
That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.
But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media - the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help - people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong - white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".
Bill Moyers is a journalist and host of PBS' Bill Moyers Journal.
© 2008 PBS
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/04/8707/
And here is the rest of it.
Thursday, May 8
Combat PTSD - Disorder or Sane Response?
It's well known I'm an advocate for the treatment of PTSD and TBI. I have been since it became obvious the Bush administration would start the illegal and immoral wars.
I've continued with preaching, ranting and obnoxious nagging about this issue both publicly and behind the scenes. I've sent letters to local mental health centers asking they start programs for veterans, family and community members impacted by PTSD and TBI. Even sent one to the Governor.
After a while it reaches an absurd point of studying the studies and redundant and obvious conclusions. There's a problem that has reached a crisis. It really doesn't take the expertise of the mental health professionals of this nation to reach that conclusion. Just ask a parent, spouse or kid of one of the returned vets. Just ask a vet.
It does seem the time and money spent studying this problem might now be better spent on treating the veterans and those who are affected. Prevention has always been an afterthought in the American healthcare system. A visit to the emergency room of most hospitals will expose the wasted potential of preventative care.
And still, I can't help but wonder if Americans aren't the lucky and pampered ones when it comes to PTSD and all the other emotional and physical wounds of war. I can't help but wonder if any studies have been done on the larger group of victims in war; the 90% who become casualties of war.....the innocent civilians. The 40% of that larger group who are children. Where are the studies of their PTSD?
Where are the studies of the Palestinian youth who throw rocks and get back automatic rifle fire, tank rounds and artillery? I wonder if the ongoing trauma of all these humans has anything to do with their hatred of the American-Israeli masters of war. I wonder if the symptoms of rage, depression and hyper-vigilance create the makings of suicide bombers or insurgents.
As usual the narcissistic Americans and their allies take precedence in their grief and their losses. We continue to only see a small portion of the huge trauma that is going on in our world. In one violent storm the Burmese have lost more souls than Americans will likely lose in ten years of war. Already the Iraqi people have lost 650,000-1.5 million in this senseless war. Americans need to become true citizens of this world and recognize we've been blessed in comparison to others in their losses.
I wonder sometimes if PTSD isn't just an American and European thing because the rest of the world is too damn occupied with daily traumas. I think of my time in New Orleans and the surrounding areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and remember the enduring spirit of the survivors. Many that I interacted with were black and had known hard times much of their lives. They were much better equipped to endure and to adapt to the bad things that happened than the middle class and wealthy of the area. PTSD was often a foreign concept because there was never any treatment offered in the past and none was expected after the shameful events of Katrina.
I wonder what we did before there was PTSD. Really, I know because I spent 12 years after being a combat Marine in Vietnam without the diagnosis being in existence. I knew something was wrong and I correctly connected it to my time in combat. When the diagnosis came about I suddenly had a label for it.
Then came treatment and drugs and psychobabble. I became the diagnosis. Instead of Terry, the pipefitter, the father, the RN or the grandfather I was a vet with PTSD. And I became immersed in the cause of preventative care for others who followed.
I've come to see I'm more than just PTSD and I've been lucky to have had treatment. I've also come to see most of the world doesn't have the luxury to have treatment or even recognition for the traumas they endure in their lives. I've come to see so much of that trauma has been a result of my government's failure to embrace peace and justice. I think of the resources we've used to kill and maim in this nation and I'm embarrassed and ashamed. How can I love my country if we continue on such a shameful path?
Yes, we do need to intervene when the troops come home to prevent the drastic effects of PTSD and TBI but we also need to remember it isn't just about us. We are not alone in this world in our grief and our trauma. I grieve the loss of my brothers in Vietnam and my brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan but I have to grieve my brothers and sisters lost by the bombs of my nation. I have to remember the lives lost because food and resources used in wars denied help the impoverished needed to survive.
I've come to realize PTSD isn't a disease. It's a sane response to an insane condition of war. Those who have the symptoms of PTSD are responding normally to such insanity. I worry more about those who see the carnage and the violence and are unaffected than those with PTSD symptoms. And apparently there are too many unaffected because we continue to engage in war after war without end.
We can take all the Effexor, Paxil and Ambien in the world but it will never cure PTSD. We can drink ourselves into blackouts or smoke crack and pot but it won't erase the memories until we've damaged our brains beyond repair. I believe the only true cure for the American troops' PTSD is peace with justice.
Our memories of the insanity are important to remind people war won 't bring us peace or justice. Enough of the parades, the heroes and the weapon displays! Enough of the saber rattling immaturity! Enough of the baby killing bombs! How stupid is it to send a human to such insanity and then decide they have a mental disorder on their return?
The true mentally ill are the self-centered, egocentric bastards that have sold their souls to the devils of corporate greed and power. They reside in Washington D.C. living in the White House and doing business in the chambers of Congress. They are responsible for the lives ruined. We are responsible for allowing it to happen.
I've continued with preaching, ranting and obnoxious nagging about this issue both publicly and behind the scenes. I've sent letters to local mental health centers asking they start programs for veterans, family and community members impacted by PTSD and TBI. Even sent one to the Governor.
After a while it reaches an absurd point of studying the studies and redundant and obvious conclusions. There's a problem that has reached a crisis. It really doesn't take the expertise of the mental health professionals of this nation to reach that conclusion. Just ask a parent, spouse or kid of one of the returned vets. Just ask a vet.
It does seem the time and money spent studying this problem might now be better spent on treating the veterans and those who are affected. Prevention has always been an afterthought in the American healthcare system. A visit to the emergency room of most hospitals will expose the wasted potential of preventative care.
And still, I can't help but wonder if Americans aren't the lucky and pampered ones when it comes to PTSD and all the other emotional and physical wounds of war. I can't help but wonder if any studies have been done on the larger group of victims in war; the 90% who become casualties of war.....the innocent civilians. The 40% of that larger group who are children. Where are the studies of their PTSD?
Where are the studies of the Palestinian youth who throw rocks and get back automatic rifle fire, tank rounds and artillery? I wonder if the ongoing trauma of all these humans has anything to do with their hatred of the American-Israeli masters of war. I wonder if the symptoms of rage, depression and hyper-vigilance create the makings of suicide bombers or insurgents.
As usual the narcissistic Americans and their allies take precedence in their grief and their losses. We continue to only see a small portion of the huge trauma that is going on in our world. In one violent storm the Burmese have lost more souls than Americans will likely lose in ten years of war. Already the Iraqi people have lost 650,000-1.5 million in this senseless war. Americans need to become true citizens of this world and recognize we've been blessed in comparison to others in their losses.
I wonder sometimes if PTSD isn't just an American and European thing because the rest of the world is too damn occupied with daily traumas. I think of my time in New Orleans and the surrounding areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and remember the enduring spirit of the survivors. Many that I interacted with were black and had known hard times much of their lives. They were much better equipped to endure and to adapt to the bad things that happened than the middle class and wealthy of the area. PTSD was often a foreign concept because there was never any treatment offered in the past and none was expected after the shameful events of Katrina.
I wonder what we did before there was PTSD. Really, I know because I spent 12 years after being a combat Marine in Vietnam without the diagnosis being in existence. I knew something was wrong and I correctly connected it to my time in combat. When the diagnosis came about I suddenly had a label for it.
Then came treatment and drugs and psychobabble. I became the diagnosis. Instead of Terry, the pipefitter, the father, the RN or the grandfather I was a vet with PTSD. And I became immersed in the cause of preventative care for others who followed.
I've come to see I'm more than just PTSD and I've been lucky to have had treatment. I've also come to see most of the world doesn't have the luxury to have treatment or even recognition for the traumas they endure in their lives. I've come to see so much of that trauma has been a result of my government's failure to embrace peace and justice. I think of the resources we've used to kill and maim in this nation and I'm embarrassed and ashamed. How can I love my country if we continue on such a shameful path?
Yes, we do need to intervene when the troops come home to prevent the drastic effects of PTSD and TBI but we also need to remember it isn't just about us. We are not alone in this world in our grief and our trauma. I grieve the loss of my brothers in Vietnam and my brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan but I have to grieve my brothers and sisters lost by the bombs of my nation. I have to remember the lives lost because food and resources used in wars denied help the impoverished needed to survive.
I've come to realize PTSD isn't a disease. It's a sane response to an insane condition of war. Those who have the symptoms of PTSD are responding normally to such insanity. I worry more about those who see the carnage and the violence and are unaffected than those with PTSD symptoms. And apparently there are too many unaffected because we continue to engage in war after war without end.
We can take all the Effexor, Paxil and Ambien in the world but it will never cure PTSD. We can drink ourselves into blackouts or smoke crack and pot but it won't erase the memories until we've damaged our brains beyond repair. I believe the only true cure for the American troops' PTSD is peace with justice.
Our memories of the insanity are important to remind people war won 't bring us peace or justice. Enough of the parades, the heroes and the weapon displays! Enough of the saber rattling immaturity! Enough of the baby killing bombs! How stupid is it to send a human to such insanity and then decide they have a mental disorder on their return?
The true mentally ill are the self-centered, egocentric bastards that have sold their souls to the devils of corporate greed and power. They reside in Washington D.C. living in the White House and doing business in the chambers of Congress. They are responsible for the lives ruined. We are responsible for allowing it to happen.
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