Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Reverend Wright



  

Reverend Wright is clearly a man of insight and conviction.  Just a little short on the facts.  There is no evidence that any government "invented" HIV.  Nor was the Tuskegee incident about infecting African-Americans; rather, it had to do with failing to treat them.  Here one must keep in mind that they many blacks with syphilis would not have been treated regardless of what the government would or would not do; although still the U.S. government was wrong in its treatment of the Tuskegee subjects since, for one, there was some chance that some subjects would have gotten treatment had they not been in the government program.  Moreover, the medical value of the experiment, particularly in its later stages, was very questionable, and seemed to have to do more with demonstrating white power over blacks than with medicine.

But Wright was a preacher, not an investigative reporter or a scientists.  If he offers some false opinions from time to time, there is no shame in having been in his congregation, nor is there exactly "shame" from Wright himself.  Given what the government did in Tuskegee, and given a host of other facts about its treatment of race and of security matters, it is not absurd to imagine that it invented HIV.  This view is simply not supported; that is its fault.

Obama needs to hit back at H. Clinton.  Yes, it is good to look the like the contender who is above it all, but getting at H. Clinton's stupidities and womanly changeability is necessary to seal the nomination and show that Obama is strong enough to lead a nuclear superpower tied to a massive security apparatus.  Maybe we don't have Tuskegee anymore, but we have its equivalent for Arab terrorists.  Yes, it's important for Obama to show that he is a man of peace, but he has to at least hint that his willing to countenance the blood-letting and killing that nation requires.  A good place to start might be by draining a few pints from Hillary....


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