The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Recalls Obama’s Fall From Grace by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Sept. 19, 2011

Image by doug88888 via Flickr

Barack Obama’s politically expedient decision to betray and abandon his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, exposed his cowardice and moral bankruptcy. In that moment, playing the part of Judas, he surrendered the last shreds of his integrity. He became nothing more than a pawn of power, or as Cornel West says, “a black mascot for Wall Street.” Obama, once the glitter of power fades, will have to grapple with the fact that he was a traitor not only to his pastor, the man who married him and Michelle, who baptized his children and who kept him spiritually and morally grounded, but to himself. Wright retains what is most precious in life and what Obama has squandered—his soul.

The health of a nation is measured by how it treats its prophets. When these prophets are ignored and reviled, when they become figures of ridicule, when they are labeled by the chattering classes and power elite as fools, then there is no check left on moral decay and the degeneration of the state. Wright, who spent 36 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side, since the 2008 presidential campaign has endured slander and calumny and weathered character assassination, misinterpretation and abuse, and yet he doggedly continues Sunday after Sunday to thunder the word of God from pulpits across the country.

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via Truthdig

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Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.

From the archives:

How the Most Dangerous Game Is Being Played by Joseph Natoli

Why Prophets Like Cornel West Make Liberal Sell-Outs Attack by Chris Hedges

Obama, the Rev. Wright and hesitation

Wisdom From Ephesus: The Gospel of John

That You May Be Certain: The Gospel of Luke

Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence By Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)