I’m flabbergasted at the difference between my take of what the Reverend Jeremiah Wright said and what the national 24/7 cable stations are saying. I saw all of the Reverend Wright’s speech in the Middle West. It was, as I said, perhaps the finest sermon I’ve ever heard. I saw parts of his appearance before the National Press Club, but I didn’t see the question and answer period, on which some criticism focused.

The drama of a good preacher, in this case I believe a truly great preacher, holds and hopefully motivates others to change for the good. Conversion, or a turning, is the object. Reaching the brain without the passion of the soul doesn’t work. So he whoops and hollers sometimes. Me too. And if that is what you DON’T LIKE, then don’t, I pray, vote for a seventy-two year-old candidate for a presidency that, with two terms, would make someone, I won’t say who, eighty. A little mania is no fun, though sometimes funny.

If the preacher is a person of God, as I believe Reverend Wright is, he likely will tell the audience what they don’t want to hear. The others, all too often, tell a nation what they want to hear, while waging a war of aggression. Or tell rich parties and people that “all is well in Zion,”and never mind the poor, those without health care, those whose homes are being foreclosed, those who are starving in a land of plenty.” Saying,” be ye warmed and filled,” says James, the brother of Jesus, demands that we DO it. Our leaders say the words but they are hypocrites. They do nothing. From his long life’s story, the Reverend Wright does what he preaches. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a man of God.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is well-named. He’s casting Jeremiads at a nation murdering hundreds of thousands of people since World War Two. He compared American troops world-wide, as Roman Empire look-alikes. Which is exactly what they are. But wait. Not quite. Rome produced the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. Not so, Bushed America. Bush has given us a world splintered even though 9/11 produced almost universal sorrow and support for the United States of America. We are at war, world-wide. No peace in sight. No fault of the brave troops, Roman or American. Now we have tyranny, torture, the obliteration of the Bill of Rights, and almost universal distain, if not hatred, for our great country. “Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and……Bush?” It doesn’t play. No. A Pox on our “leaders.” Yes, that dumb ass in the White House and his spiritual adviser, Cheney.

Our current wars of aggression have been well indicted in OneUtah.org. If you want to listen to the usual shit, choose among your abundant talking heads on Fox, and at least two on CNN. And tune in on the dark side of this campaign. Shame on the so-called national media. What a group of clowns demonstrating the intellect of a slug and the ethics of Al Capone. They are pretty people. And very very rich.

If you are Mormon and want to see class, or at least read brilliance, read the Jeremiads of J. Reuben Clark, Jr., during World War Two. Note: During the Second World War, while our troops were dying by the tens of thousands. What did Clark say? He said God would not forgive us for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or fire- bombing Tokyo and Dresden. He condemned without equivocation the deveopment and storage of biological and chemical and nuclear weapons in Utah. During a war. He condemned the use of our God-given land and air and water and people in the employ of making or storing or disposing of weapons of mass destruction here. Preaching at Hitler would serve no purpose in America, other than to increase the fanatical hatred already drenching a world at war. This was a man. An American to match the German clergy, those very few, who preached against Hitler while he controlled Germany. An American, a Mormon Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Ed Firmage