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| Two Who Heard The Call |
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| Surprisingly, the black man is viewed as dangerous, the Justice as.....a brilliant jurist. |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, April 30, 2008. When I was spending my days in and out of court - and then, in and out of jail - I unfortunately saw a lot of judges and you can’t help but form generalizations about them. Not a few see themselves in inflated roles of moral arbiters as priests in the temple rather than a public official keeping the peace. I am less familiar of late with clerics, being an atheist, but in my time I’ve listened and talked to way too many men who’ve heard the Call, and I could not help but discover how many of them were warped beyond imaginings when not actually stupid beyond mere genetic endowment: they had to really work at it to construct a mental landscape world that allow belief people in the real world would look to them for insight, and the public often ignores them. But not all who hear the Call wear the collar, though. If you’re a member of Opus Dei, you believe that the Work of God is sometimes best done through secular pursuits. Two men who heard the Call followed different paths and were displayed to us by television last week. When I listen to Tony “The Avenging Templar” Scalia emote for the ages, and see Rear Reverend Wrong taking advantage of Obama’s wobbling bully pulpit in utero, I view both these men as having heard The Call and reached for different congregations. As usual, the media gets it totally wrong. Imagine a reactionary European Catholic of high learning and high intelligence. Further, imagine him nursing grudges against aspects of the modern world that infringe upon general respect and power he believes owed a reactionary Catholic of high learning and high intelligence. There, you have Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Scalia to the life. Not one of his decisions or votes violates a desire to preserve that image, that reality. He wants a powerful executive and a docile legislature and a silent but resolute judiciary to protect that balance. His decisions are based upon that, solely, not about a Living Constitution. He wants a pre-Pope John XXIII world. His disrespect for people in general is reflected by his high thespian skills at deflecting them, the exact opposite of what the media projects and what people want to believe. His beliefs are those of the reactionary French Catholics who to this day fight the results of their own revolution. Predicting how he will vote on issues requires no more than keeping that prejudice before you. Scalia is a powerful man, and quite capable of charming or intimidating the media, who never mention he must dye his hair, being 72. Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor of Obama’s small Chicago church on the other hand, is not a powerful man, but you wouldn’t know that from the media coverage. Scalia was recently on 60 Minutes and was tongue bathed. Wright - who unlike Scalia served in the military - is presented as an ignorant man and a vicious bigot. That canard appeals to guilty whites, who want to get rid of their guilt, and bigoted whites, who want to think that black America is a threat and inferior for that. There are three big things that the media wants us to know about Wright: he agrees with Ward Churchill that 9-11 was chickens coming home to roost; he thinks AIDS was a man made plague designed to kill off blacks; and that Obama may have been infected with these beliefs and that if elected, he will inflict vengeance upon white America. Reverend Wright actually seems to want us to think that, by slipping on martyr robes and claiming criticism of him is really a criticism of the black church and therefore of blacks in general. He uses it to elevate himself within his community while foolishly drop-kicking Obama nationally. Even if true, Scalia is far more dangerous. I don’t know about AIDS. I’ve read all the stuff about it, and I’m still suspicious that it appears out of nowhere in Africa with no history that doesn’t seem contrived. Further, white America has shown small remorse about using poor blacks without their approval for medical experiments. Syphilis and Yellow Fever to name two. Further, authorities in this nation may have tested gas attacks in public subways, but surely tested nuclear weapons on our own soldiers, as Life Magazine covers from the 1950’s prove. So, Wright isn’t without reason. There really is no doubt that 9-11 was chickens coming home to roost in metaphor or fact. The debate is over their specific parentage. I said on this commentary years ago that if all the planes on 9-11 had hit the Pentagon – an undeniable military target – al Quada would have been world wide heroes, given they’d already declared war on us. No surprise attack. Wright is not wrong on that particular point; neither was Churchill. I find it hard to believe that a man or woman of any intelligence at all believes in God, but understand that a community gathering to applaud commonly held values now imparted to children and hear the old stories is good for everybody, and surely no harm. And, I like the music and singing together and the traditions and the poetry. I understand there is, academically, reason to fear a cleric who takes advantage of that, and we all know some have. But not all clerics wear the collar. What I do not understand is tolerance for our highest officials who display reactionary, patriarchal religious garbage that is clearly the basis of much horror in our history. How, after two men who heard the Call are displayed for the nation to see and hear, the Reverend Wright is viewed as dangerous and Justice Scalia as merely ornery, is beyond me. It requires a learned stupidity requiring practice. |
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