Barack Obama And Jeremiah Wright’s Channel Blair’s Symploce
SAYS abc: “Obama’s Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama’s Campaign Aides Say Is ‘Inflammatory Rhetoric’.”
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has been Barack Obama’s pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s south side.
And he loves a conspiracy theory.
He told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”.
The Wall Street Journal hears more:
“We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”
And: “We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . .”
On America’s blacks: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people… God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”
God damn. Looking from the outside in on America, it’s always noticeable how American everyone is. Even in highlighting disunity and perceived unfairness, the American succeeds in sounding only like an American. He demands to be heard. He speaks of the power of America. An America leader has to believe in God. In the UK, we think a leader who wears his religion on his sleeve is a creep.
The story is that in listening to a pastor, Obama should become influenced, inspired to believe all he hears. Abc says: “Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, ‘The Audacity of Hope’.”
Might it just be that the one thing Obama has learned from Wright is how to hold a crowd?
Says Obama: “In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone. In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.”
As Figaro says, this is the symploce (SIM-plo-see), the first and last repeat. From the Greek, meaning “interweaving.”
After Hillary Clinton made the mistake of saying it took a president to push through civil rights legislation, Barack Obama has been channeling MLK as much as he can. The effort is paying off: Obama snagged nearly all the black vote in the Nevada caucuses.
Yesterday he gave a Kingly sermon at MLK’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. The speech occasionally slipped into wonkish arrhythmia, with clunky phrases like “empathy deficit.” But Obama got the crowd amen-ing when he picked up the figures that MLK used. One of the best is the symploce, which repeats the beginning and end of successive phrases, clauses or sentences.
We’ve heard the voice of the Church in Britain, too. Education. Education. Education. Book of Tony Blair…
Posted: 14th, March 2008 | In: Politicians Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
