Myopic Worldview

In the Internet, Google, and You Tube era, Republican presidential candidate John McCain made a startling discovery. Reverend John Hagee made several disparaging remarks about the Catholic Church and preached Adolph Hitler was a divine instrument in compelling Jews to return to Palestine. Reverend Rod Parsley preached the United States founding principle was to destroy Islam.

Senator McCain’s pastor problem reminded me of a Seinfeld episode, but not because Senator McCain’s haphazard attempt to mollify the Christian Right or the Seinfeld episode were funny.

The Seinfeld episode is called “The Puerto Rican Day.” It was broadcast on May 7, 1998. The plot is about Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer driving into Manhattan on a June afternoon after a New York Mets game, but they are trapped in a traffic jam. The protagonists are unaware the Puerto Rican Day parade was scheduled on the same day as the baseball game.

During the episode, Kramer accidentally sets the Puerto Rican flag on fire. Kramer tries to put out the fire by stomping on the Puerto Rican flag and raucous comedy follows. A group of Puerto Ricans witness Kramer stomping on the Puerto Rican flag. The mob of angry Puerto Ricans chase Kramer. Kramer gets away from the mob, but the mob vandalizes Jerry’s car and throw the vacant car down the stairs. Kramer makes the observation that “it’s like this every day in Puerto Rico.”[i]

Burning the American flag is protected free speech in the context of political protest, but is considered sacrilegious by patriotic Americans regardless of context. However, burning the Puerto Rican flag as a comedy prop was acceptable.

What does a tasteless Seinfeld episode have in common with Senator McCain’s pastor problem?

Alec Berg, Jennifer Crittenden, Larry David, Spike Feresten, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Gegg Kavet, Steven Koren, David Mandel, Dan O’Keefe, Andy Robin, Jeff Schaffer and Jerry Seinfeld wrote “The Puerto Rican Day.” Not one writer was Puerto Rican judging from the surnames. A Puerto Rican writer would have objected to the blatant misuse of the Puerto Rican flag.

Senator McCain’s campaign staff is as limited in worldview as is Seinfeld’s writing staff. The Seinfeld writing staff did not recognize that burning the Puerto Rican flag would be offensive. Senator McCain did not recognize that accepting Reverend Hagee and Reverend Parsley would offend Catholics and Muslims.

Republicans will cite the “God damn America” and “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” statements made by Senator Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, arguing the statements are worse than the endorsement of the bigoted preachers.

Statements removed from context always appear worse. When Reverend Wright said “God damn America,” he was making a distinction between governments and religion.

“Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change,” said Reverend Wright. “And I’m through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate – the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!”[ii]

The sound-bite repeated by the mass media used 32 words out a total of 306 words in the previous paragraph. Without context, these 32 words will offend.

Furthermore, the majority of Americans do not understand that the perspective of a black man, who was raised in a segregated country, is different than the perspective of a white man who never suffered the indignity of racial discrimination. The Mainstream Media tends to skewer the perspective of African Americans.

The Mediacracy’s misuse of the “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” quote is more disingenuous and egregious because Reverend was quoting Ambassador Edward Peck, a retired career diplomat, in the sermon. The Mainstream Media does not mention Reverend Wright is quoting Ambassador Peck.

The purpose of the sermon was to illustrate a similarity between Psalm 137 and the present unending violence towards civilians. Psalm 137 ends with, “Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy are those who pay you back for what you have done to us – who take your babies and smash them against a rock.”[iii]

The sermon was delivered on the first Sunday after September 11th. “I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him 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. You see him John? A white man he pointed out – an Ambassador,” said Reverend Wright. “He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America’s chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans 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 teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. ‘Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock!’ We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback 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 would 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 we have done overseas has now been brought 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’s trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised.”[iv]

Granted, excerpts taken out of context from Reverend Wright’s sermons are offensive to most Americans, but Reverend Wright’s comments do not have foreign policy implications.

Reverend Hagee called the Catholic Church “the Great Whore,” said the Catholic Church was a cult, and preached Adolph Hitler learned anti Semitism while attending Catholic School.

Reverend Hagee not only offends American Catholics with his statements, but Catholics throughout the world – including world leaders. Do you think the leaders from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile would grant goodwill to an American president who sought the endorsement of a Catholic hating bigot?

An influential Catholic in the McCain campaign would have warned the Republican nominee that accepting Reverend Hagee’s endorsement would risk losing the support among Catholics in the United States, and alienate Catholic leaders throughout the world.

However, it was Reverend Hagee sermon from the late 1990’s preaching Hitler was a part of God’s divine plan to shepherd the Jews back to Israel that forced Senator McCain to repudiate and refuse the Christian preacher’s endorsement. “Behold, I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters and they, the hunters will hunt them, that will be the Jews,” said Reverend Hagee. “From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks. If that doesn‘t describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust, you can‘t see that. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended.”[v]

“I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee‘s endorsement. And I feel I must reject his endorsement as well,” said Senator McCain.[vi] The Republican nominee was unable to resist the temptation to include the presumptive Democratic nominee into his controversy. “I have said I do not believe Senator Obama’s shares Reverend Wright’s extreme views but let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor and I did not attend his church for 20 years.”[vii]

Senator McCain has a double standard. It is permissible to have the support of a Catholic bigot, but the bigot has to be dismissed when he claims the Holocaust was divinely inspired. Mr. McCain fails to understand a bigot against one segment of society is predisposed to being bigoted against other segments of society.

Reverend Rod Parsley’s bigotry is reserved for Muslims. According to Senator McCain, Reverend Parsley is one of the United States “truly great leaders, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.”[viii] Reverend Parsley was a great leader at least until May 23, 2008 when a portion of Reverend Parsley’s sermon appeared on television.

“Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends, through violence, to conquer the world. What some call extremists, are instead mainstream Muslim believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam,” said Reverend Parsley. “I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I’m not shrinking back from its implications. The fact is that America was founded – I’m going to stagger you right now – America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed.”[ix]

Senator McCain refused and rejected Reverend Parsley’s endorsement after ABC News broadcast the sermon on television.

Mr. McCain’s initial acceptance of Reverend Parsley’s endorsement indicates he does not have a Muslim working for his presidential campaign. A Muslim would have warned Senator McCain about Reverend Parsley’s anti-Islamic sermon. A Muslim campaign staff member would have objected to the endorsement.

Muslims do not constitute a sizable voting bloc in the United States. It is a safe to assume you will not see a right wing conservative politician actively campaigning in Muslim communities.

However Reverend Parsley’s initial endorsement of Senator McCain could have foreign policy implications. The United States gets its oil from Middle Eastern countries that are ruled by Muslims. Do you think the Saudi Royal family will increase oil production in order to reduce gas prices in the United States if our president associates with someone who believes our founding principle was based on destroying Islam? Do you think the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia will be receptive to our efforts regarding the war on terror if they believed the United States wants to destroy Islam?

Senator McCain will argue that Reverend Parsley was not his pastor and he never attended a service presided by the historically ignorant preacher. He may even take another cheap shot at Senator Obama’s association with Jeremiah Wright, but associations matter in an integrated world. Globalization makes the United States dependent on the goodwill of other countries. We will not endear ourselves to the rest of the world if our elected officials continue to associate with religious leaders who proudly display their ignorance and bigotry.

Senator Obama is an attractive presidential candidate because the Illinois Senator is a world citizen. His father is from Kenya. His mother is American. Senator Obama lived in Indonesia and Hawaii. He has relatives in Kenya. Mr. Obama has a perspective many Americans do not have.

Senator Obama’s nameless opponents attempted to label him a “closet Muslim” with the hope of discouraging support for his candidacy. But Mr. Obama’s candidacy inspires other world citizens.

Responding to an opinion column regarding Mr. Obama’s religious affiliation in the New York Times, Augustus Richard Norton wrote, “I have spent about half of the last two years in the Middle East (Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon) conducting book research. I have been struck by the profound disappointment that United States policy typically evokes among old and young, including ultra-pious and lax Muslims. These people do not see Mr. Obama as a lapsed Muslim but as a potentially empathetic American leader who grew to maturity as a Christian.”[x]

Responding to the same article, Zainab Bello, an American Muslim, wrote, “No candidate has a more colorful background, more dynamic life story and more mixed-race blood flowing in his veins than Mr. Obama. And with an inclination to talk to his foes, Mr. Obama’s excitement in the Muslim world lies less on his vaguely having a Muslim grandfather than on the simple fact that he’s lived in the Muslim world…”[xi]

“People in Muslim countries are aware that Senator Barack Obama is not a Muslim,” wrote Zaid Shakir. “And yet he enjoys wide support in those countries. That support has nothing to do with Mr. Obama’s being a full, half or non-Muslim; it is rooted in the fact that he promises to change the kind of policies that have led to such a negative view of America by people in other countries, both Muslims and members of other faith communities.”[xii]

Change is the rallying cry of the Obama campaign. But change also describes the life of another prominent African American – Malcolm X. It is safe to say no other American figure metamorphosed as dramatically as Malcolm X. From petty criminal, to black nationalist, Malcolm X’s most dramatic transformation occurred during a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1964.

“You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions,” wrote Malcolm X. “This was not difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”[xiii]

Malcolm X’s trip to the Middle East changed his perception of the world around him. “My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It has blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw what I had never seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans – in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshipping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not know how to interpret the meaning of those words.”[xiv]

Malcolm X no longer perceived whites as the enemy. “In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again – as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man…”[xv]

Malcolm X went to Mecca, Saudi Arabia and it changed him. He grew and became a better man. Barack Obama years overseas gave him a different perspective.

During the campaign, Senator McCain said Iran was training Al Qaeda to fight in Iraq. All Muslims appear the same to Mr. McCain.

President John F Kennedy made a prophetic speech at American University in 1963. “So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved,” said President Kennedy. “And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”[xvi]

The next president of the United States needs a better understanding of the world. Senator Obama has a perspective that will allow the United States to fully integrate into world affairs. Senator McCain’s initial embrace of Reverend Hagee and Reverend Parsley indicate he has a myopic worldview and is incapable of understanding the perspective of the world community.


[i] “NBC Apologizes for ‘Seinfeld’ Episode on the Puerto Rican Day Parade,” New York Times, May 9, 1998.
[ii] Bill Moyers’ Journal, April 25, 2008.
[iii] Psalm 137.
[iv] Bill Moyers’ Journal, April 25, 2008.
[v] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, May 21, 2008.
[vi] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, May 21, 2008.
[vii] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, May 21, 2008.
[viii] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, May 22, 2008.
[ix] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, May 22, 2008.
[x] “Frank Talk About Obama and Islam,” New York Times, May 14, 2008.
[xi] “Frank Talk About Obama and Islam,” New York Times, May 14, 2008.
[xii] “Frank Talk About Obama and Islam,” New York Times, May 14, 2008.
[xiii] The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley, First Ballentine Books, November, 1992, page 340.
[xiv] The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley, First Ballentine Books, November, 1992, page 362.
[xv] The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley, First Ballentine Books, November, 1992, page 362.
[xvi] John F Kennedy, “Commencement Address at American University,” June 10, 1963.