Kevin D. Hendricks

Wow. The craziness is flying over comments made by Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. I’ve read reactions from people stronly opposed to Wright, and from people defending Wright (or at least giving some helpful context—Knightopia links to several more).

Some of what Wright says is clearly off the deep end (i.e., the government invented AIDS to wipe out people of color). But I think some of his comments are right on. Like the “God Damn America” comments:

“The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], 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.” (Seattle Times)

The ABC News story left out the last sentence, which I think helps give some context. Wright is preaching prophetically, like the prophets of old, who spoke out against injustice. I love America and the freedoms we have, but it’s not anti-American to speak out against injustice committed by America. That’s patriotic. (I wish Obama would have made that point.)

And America has some injustice going on when there are more black men in prison than in college.

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Apparently a number states have balked at the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to require nationwide standards for ID cards, known as the Real ID Act. It sounds like a fairly boring story, though maybe an interesting case of state’s rights vs. national security.

Boring, that is, until you hear Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer weigh in on NPR:

“We’re putting up with the federal government on so many fronts and nearly every month they come out with another harebrained scheme, an unfunded mandate to tell us that our life is going to be better if we’ll just buckle under on some other kind of rule or regulation. We usually just play along for a while, ignore them for as long as we can. We try not to bring it to a head. But if it comes to a head we’ve found that it’s best to just tell them to go to hell and run your state the way you want to run your state.”

Hilarious. Check out Wired for more background on the Real ID debate.