“When deeds speak, words are nothing.” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

I just finished listening for the third time to Barack Obama speak as if the words, the thoughts, came not from a mortal man but from his immortal soul.     After hearing him speak as he did Tuesday in Philadelphia I cried.  Yes,  I cried because it seem to me that I was hearing  Mr. King speak again, and for only the second time in my lifetime I felt I was witnessing first-hand…..greatness.  I  could believe that perhaps there was a mortal man who could bring us together; all of us together with no regard for color or gender or  faith, but to bring us together solely on the strength of our  individual and collective dreams.

Dear Lord how I want to believe this man!  How terribly I want the  hope that his words inspire. But unfortunately I have heard also the words of the man Barack Obama calls his mentor.   I have heard the words of  the pastor of  Barack Obama’s  church,  Jeremiah Wright.  I have heard and been appalled at the hate words spewing from this man’s mouth  as demoralizing as Barack Obama’s words  were stirring.

Barach Obama  tried to convince me of his denunciation of these words.  He spoke with sincerity trying to convince me that just as I don’t agree with every word my pastor says this is how he regards these terrible hate speech words of  Pastor Jeremiah Wright. He stated several times with sincerity  that he condemns these words of his pastor Jeremiah Wright.   And you know….I would have been convinced.  I so wanted to be convinced.  Except for one very small, very damning fact:  Barack Obama has listened to these words from Jeremiah Wright for twenty long years!  He has listened and he tells me he has not agreed with the hate words of Jeremiah Wright spewing forth from the pulpit half of his lifetime!

Barack Obama  tries to convince me that the hate words coming from Jeremiah Wright  were due to his pain at having lived in the early days before  the civil rights era when Blacks were treated as second class citizens.  He tries to explain  to me the pain suffered by Jeremiah Wright  during the early civil rights movement where Blacks (and White Civil Right workers) were  harassed and arrested and even beaten.  I’m sorry but I simply can not  forgive Pastor Jeremiah Wright for these hate words.  He is after all  a human being and minister with the ability to reason and hopefully, forgive  others , so he knows what he is saying.  And  he knows   first hand from his own experiences  the terrible cost of  hate, and  yet he preaches hate from his pulpit!

Well I cannot forgive Jeremiah Wright for his hate words and neither can I forgive nor understand Barack Obama attending this man’s church for twenty years and exposing even his two daughters to this as he says ”divisive speech.”   Because you see if Barack Obama did not agree with the hundreds of hours over the past twenty years that he has sat thru and listened to these damning hate filled rants then why did he continue top listen?  I,  a mere old White battle scared civil rights soldier,  would have turned away from my parents, my husband, my children if they were filled with so much hate.  Barack Obama neither spoke to his minister of his disagreement, nor did he stop attending his church where such hatred and revulsion against his country and countrymen was disgorged from the church pulpit.  The church pulpit  where the words of God are the only words that should have been spoken.

As I told a commenter on my blog yesterday, I would not  have voted for Barack Obama because I very much disagree with him on  most of the actions that he promises to take for the nation and the world if he is elected.  But I  did find him worthy of being the President of the United States.  Today regardless of his beautiful inspiring words I must judge him lacking as a decent human  being because of his actions, or lack there of.  BB