Pirate's Cove

Over on Anderson Cooper’s blog at CNN, Roland Martin was trying to put Jeremiah Wrights “chickens coming home to roost” comment in context, and went and listened to the whole speech

As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.

I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

Seriously, so what? If Wright was quoting Peck (sort of) during a church service, which also begs the question the question why politics were being preached in church anyhow, did he believe in what Peck was saying? (I’ll excerpt the speech at the end of this post for context)

Martin goes on to write

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.

The last one I will certainly agree with, but, I am sure that must upset many, many progressives, what with the talking to God stuff.

As far as the first 2, the first one goes back to the Blame America First and “why do they hate us” type mentality, which is born out by the speech. The second goes to really the same, as there was very little in the speech about family, till the end. I’m sure most in the KKK cared about their families and communities, too.

So, Martin has inadverdently exposed the progressive beliefs that America is to blame, it is our foreign policy that has turned Muslims in to murderous nutjobs, which Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all the other extremist groups and people thank progressives for, so we need to look inside to see how we can change our whole society to accomodate the murderers. I wonder if Martin has heard the words “sharia” and “caliphate?”

The speech

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

You decide what he meant.