Leigh, I agree with you in the first part. It is often a good read.

On your second point, I actually said..”His hatred of the Democrat drips from almost every word”. If you read carefully j_p_z comments, on Obama, it would be hard to conclude otherwise.

Some of us over here reckon Hills would have been a slam dunk against McCain. Older women have much more stamina for the long haul than older men for a start. And any Repug negative ad campaign against her would have been taken as a personal insult by 51% of the voting population.

While we can understand that americans really like all that preacher stuff that Obama does, was he really a better choice for the Dems to win the election against the GOP machine?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

And yet the latter is exactly what the phrase does. (Never mind that your major premise, “White Western culture runs on greed,” is highly debatable, and probably preposterous.) What does “white folks” mean: abstract culture, or “White people”? I know what it means when I hear Black people say it, which I do (and I don’t know if you do.)

The rest of your assertions are of similarly poor quality. I could devise a few interesting thought experiments to show where your reasoning goes south, but this has gone on too long, and it’s not the main point anyway.

joe2 — my dislike of the GOP would be unremarkable on this blog. My dislike of McCain centers on domestic issues that probably hold little interest for Australians, but believe you me, I dislike McCain. For purposes of writing here, my dislike of the Dems is a little anomalous, and it what’s known as “value-added”. Baked Potato/And A Cold Beer in ’08!

Nick: “during preselection which Obama won in a landslide”

Um, no. Obama fought a closely-contested campaign, which he struggled to win, against *the most hated woman in America*, and he would arguably have lost except for certain commendably clever aspects of his campaign strategy. (btw, he is now in a statistical dead-heat against a moribund grouch who is hated by much of his own (much-despised) party. Where’s the trust?) When presidents win on Electoral College votes but lose the popular vote, the left screams that the people’s will has been denied. Obama crafted a very sound and interesting strategy along these lines, and now you call it a landslide.

Explain why you should be taken seriously, and then perhaps I will respond to the rest of your laughable points.

Why even muck around with that particular sermon, j_p_z? “white folks’ greed runs a world in need” hardly translates as vile racism.

Link directly to the Wright clips (or alternatively, one of the many ‘hate’ compilations) millions of Americans have already viewed.

They were widely publicised during preselection which Obama won in a landslide and given the poll results of the last few months, the American public (only 13% African-American) don’t seem overly perturbed.

So moving on from Jeremiah Wright – where’s your evidence Barack is “a narcissistic, mendacious shallow fool” who has “consistently used racial attacks, racial obsessions, and racial feints as part of his rhetorical strategy” and “conjured the specter of an evil racist plot”?

Or are you content just to apply your own rhetorical persuasiveness?

Also worth pointing out:

“You’re right that there is one race-obsessed hypocrite running for president…”

Kim didn’t write anything like that and neither did Schechter in his article…

“Second and major point: what you’re saying isn’t true. In fact, you are flat-out wrong; I believe the technical philosophical term is, you’re ass-backwards on this.”

So what you’re saying isn’t true. In fact, it’s flat-out silly; I believe the technical term is ‘smashing the ball into the back fence’.

j_p_z, when it comes down to it, is fighting Wright, Obama and even Mcain because of some over the top fear of the left. These sermons are interesting and becoming more strident as the American election draws near.

While he says that he would prefer a baked patatoe than either candidate, my bet is he plugging for the frozen vegetable. His hatred of the Democrat drips from almost every word.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-070121-relig_wright,0,7064380.story?page=2

This modification is noteworthy.

Wright’s formulation implies strongly that individuals who belong to certain groups do not at present hope because they have not yet generated sufficient audacity.

Obama’s formulation implies strongly that hope is a common inheritance and only audacity is required for all to mobilise it.

Thus, it seems clear that Obama does not share Wright’s expressed views about hopelessness.

And what tigtog said:

Pointing out that White Western culture runs on greed is not the same as assuming that all White people are therefore greedy, either.

As to the phrase itself, your outrage strikes me as disingenuously excessive. It’s a valid point, surely, when juxtaposed with the image of food wasted by cruise ships at ports in countries where people are starving – we do know that this does happen, don’t we?

More generally, the West does exploit the rest of the world, diverting resources that could feed the starving simply to feed our engines of commerce and our appetites for luxuries. Despite the fact that various colonised peoples have often enthusiastically embraced Western capitalism, it’s still very much a White creation. Pointing out that White Western culture runs on greed is not the same as assuming that all White people are therefore greedy, either.