"Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children's Head Against the Rock"

Well, well, well. I had wondered why we saw so little of Wright's 9/11 speech. Turns out that that "chickens coming home to roost" bit was a quote from U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck, who said it on, er, Fox News.

Here's the Youtube clip. It's been getting a few views recently:



And here's some of the transcript:

“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see 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, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.”

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away 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 teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back 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’d 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 that we have done overseas is now brought right 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 is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.

Funny how Krauthammer et al didn't mention the REST of the speech, huh? I mean, yes, they'd still find it treasonous and odious, like they do all "chickens coming home to roost" arguments. And yes, they'd still have a point if they said "er, ok, we've done bad things, but the responsibility still ultimately lies on them." I'd agree with that argument, and have in the past.

But instead, they pick and choose little snippets that suit their purposes, just like they have with the Obama piece.

Only one problem: this video that I just embedded has three hundred thousand views, and more on the way. I suspect that this shows what the Obama speech did.. that in this age of easily available (and embeddable) video publishing, the old age of media guys picking and choosing their sound bites is rapidly coming to a close.

(Also ending: the ability to spam comments threads and have anybody pay attention. I think that pretty much EVERYBODY tunes out people writing "ANYONE WHO SCREAMS G….D….AMERICA REPEATEDLY EITHER LEAVE OUR COUNTRY OR RENOUNCE HIS AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP" at this point. That's probably one of the positive side-effects of the popularity of MySpace and Facebook and YouTube and the rest. There's more opportunities for people to hone their bullshit-screening skills.)