Politics+and+the+English+Language

Meaningless Words, Stale Imagery, and Pretentious Diction in Modern Political Language).

Meaningless Words by Michaela

MORE than fourteen years have passed since the unhappy day when the German people, blinded by promises  from foes at home and abroad, lost touch with honor  and freedom , thereby losing all. Since that day of treachery, the Almighty has withheld his blessing from our people. Dissension and hatred descended upon us. With profound distress millions of the best German men and women from all walks of life have seen the unity of the nation vanishing away, dissolving in a confusion of political and personal opinions, economic interests, and ideological differences. Since that day, as so often in the past, Germany has presented a picture of heartbreaking disunity. We never received the equality and fraternity we had been promised, and we lost our liberty  to boot. For when our nation lost its political place in the world, it soon lost its unity of spirit  and will ....

We are firmly convinced that the German nation entered the fight in 1914 without the slightest feeling of guilt on its part and filled only with the desire to defend the Fatherland which had been attacked and to preserve the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">freedom <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, nay, the very existence, of the German people. This being so, we can only see in the disastrous <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">fate <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> which has overtaken us since those November days of 1918 the result of our collapse at home. But the rest of the world, too, has suffered no less since then from overwhelming crises. The balance of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">power <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> which had evolved in the course of history, and which formerly played no small part in bringing about the understanding of the necessity for an internal solidarity of the nations, with all its advantages for trade and commerce, has been set on one side. The insane conception of victors and vanquished destroyed the confidence existing between nations, and, at the same time, the industry of the entire world.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The misery of our people is horrible to behold! Millions of the industrial proletariat are unemployed and starving; the whole of the middle class and the small artisans have been impoverished. When this collapse finally reaches the German peasants, we will be faced with an immeasurable disaster. For then not only shall a nation collapse, but a two-thousand-year-old inheritance, some of the loftiest products of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">human <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> culture and civilization.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All about us the warning signs of this collapse are apparent. Communism with its method of madness is making a powerful and insidious attack upon our dismayed and shattered nation. It seeks to poison and disrupt in order to hurl us into an epoch of chaos.... This negative, destroying <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">spirit <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> spared nothing of all that is highest and most <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">valuable <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Beginning with the family, it has undermined the very foundations of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">morality <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">faith <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and scoffs at culture and business, nation and Fatherland, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">justice <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">honor <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Fourteen years of Marxism have ruined Germany; one year of bolshevism would destroy her. The richest and fairest territories of the world would be turned into a smoking heap of ruins. Even the sufferings of the last decade and a half could not be compared to the misery of a Europe in the heart of which the red flag of destruction had been hoisted. The thousands of wounded, the hundreds of dead which this inner strife has already cost Germany should be a warning of the storm which would come....

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Explanation <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whenever Hitler uses meaningless words in his Proclamation to the German Nation, February 1933, most of his people understand what the message is that he is trying to express, but the meaningless words weaken their understanding of the specific message. Hitler uses words that everyone understands, but many either interpret it differently than what he was meaning, or it is a word that truly has no defined definition; it is very vague. It can almost mislead someone into thinking something completely opposite, or just different, than the true meaning of the message being delivered. When using meaningless words, the speaker is trying to use the words in his message; he uses them trying to portray a message through those words by activating peoples’ own meanings of the word. In reality, there are no true definitions of the words; only a reaction to those words. For example, there is no true meaning to the word “justice”. If you try to define it, it can be very difficult. Instead, people define the words with feelings.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stale Imagery by Sarah

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yet we know what we must do. <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

<span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

<span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Surely <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Robert F. Kennedy “On the Mindless Menace of Violence”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kennedy, Robert F.. " Remarks of Senator Robert F. Kennedy to the Cleveland City Club, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968 - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2012. <http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Senator-Robert-F-Kennedy-to-the-Cleveland-City-Club-Cleveland-Ohio-April-5-1968.aspx>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Explanation: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In this speech, Robert F. Kennedy sounds like he is being clear with his message, however in reality, his use of stale imagery makes his message more dull. The stale imagery makes some of Kennedy’s meanings rather vague; almost to the point where it seemed pointless to use them at all.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pretentious Diction by Ian

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the United States Congress. I come to this house of the people to speak to you and all Americans, certain we stand at a defining hour.Halfway around the world, we are engaged in a great struggle in the skies and on the seas and sands. We know why we're there. We are Americans—part of something larger than ourselves.For two centuries we've done the hard work of freedom. And tonight we lead the world in facing down a threat to decency and humanity.What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea—a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">universal aspirations of mankind <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our struggle, and worthy of our children's future.The community of nations has <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">resolutely <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> gathered to <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">condemn and repel lawless aggression <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Saddam Hussein's unprovoked invasion—his ruthless, systematic rape of a peaceful neighbor—violated everything the community of nations holds dear. The world has said this aggression would not stand, and it will not stand.Together, we have resisted the trap of <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">appeasement, cynicism and isolation <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that gives temptation to tyrants. The world has answered Saddam's invasion with 12 United Nations resolutions, starting with a demand for Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal, and backed up by forces from 28 countries of six continents. With few exceptions, the world now stands as one.The end of the cold war has been a victory for all humanity. A year and a half ago, in Germany, I said our goal was a Europe whole and free. Tonight, Germany is united. Europe has become whole and free, and America's leadership was <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">instrumental <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in making it possible.The principle that has guided us is simple: our <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">objective <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is to help the Baltic peoples achieve their aspirations, not to punish the Soviet Union. In our recent discussions with the Soviet leadership we have been given representations, which, if fulfilled, would result in the withdrawal of some Soviet forces, a <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">reopening of dialogue <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> with the republics, and a move away from violence.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Explanation: George H.W. Bush, in his state of the union address, used numerous examples of pretentious diction that, at time, made his points seem distant and difficult to relate to for the purpose of making himself seem more intelligent. In the opening statements of his speech, he addresses basic human desires (peace, freedom, and security) as the “universal aspirations of mankind”. This phrase, while not hard to understand, uses words that sound more educated than “dreams” and “people”. Bush also claims that, as an alliance of nations, the United States and other friendly countries have resisted the “trap of appeasement, cynicism and isolation”. Again, Bush could have easily used simpler words. Later in the speech, he uses the phrase “reopening of dialogue”, where he could have simply talked about improved communication.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Group Speech:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On one end of the spectrum, we’ve <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">heard the implication <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">desire <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">incendiary <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">denigrate <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">both the greatness and the goodness of our nation <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">; that rightly offend white and black alike.

<span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely — just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">injustice <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Instead, they <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">expressed <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">endemic <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of <span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">stalwart <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">perverse and hateful ideologies <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of radical Islam.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we need unity <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but rather problems that confront us all.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Given my background, my politics, and <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">my professed <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">values <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ideals <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">react <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in much the same way.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">EDT, BARACK OBAMA | 3/18/08 10:53 AM. "Transcript of Obama speech - Barack Obama - POLITICO.com." Politics, Political News - Election 2012 - POLITICO.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9100.html>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Key:__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #9900ff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Purple <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> - Meaningless Words <span style="background-color: #00ffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Blue <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> - Stale Imagery <span style="background-color: #38761d; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Green <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> - Pretentious Diction

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Group Speech Rewritten:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some have accused me of creating a campaign simply to allow liberals to cheaply achieve racial forgiveness. Others, such as my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, have used inflammatory language to express views that widen the racial divide and degrade our nation’s values, rightly offending whites and blacks alike.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have already condemned the controversial statements of Reverend Wright. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely — just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But Reverend Wright’s recent remarks have been more than controversial. They weren’t simply a an effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of sturdy allies like Israel, instead of originating from the cruel ideologies of radical Islam.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.