Reverend Joseph Lowery Gives Racist Speech at Obama's Inauguration

The following is an excerpt from a speech that Reverend Joseph Lowery gave during the recent inauguration of President Barack Obama. Click on this link for a transcript of the entire speech http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2009/01/rev-lowery-inauguration-benedi.html or click on the embedded video above.

"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around. When yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

Martin Luther King said that we should not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Lowery's statement categorizes people into separate racial groups and judges them on their color alone. I am offended by the outright bigotry and inaccuracy of Lowery's statement. If you are going to use color to generalize behavior of a group, why not be more accurate?

Although it is distasteful for me to categorize people into racial stereotypes and then make wholesale judgments based on race, I will do so here in an effort to demonstrate how absurd, insulting and inaccurate Rev. Lowery's statement is.

The day has come when "blacks will not be asked to get in the back". That day came over 50 years ago, when segregation was ended in America and civil rights laws were put in place and have been vigorously enforced ever since. I know of no known case of racial segregation since. If there were any, they have been corrected by our criminal and civil justice systems. In today's America, blacks are not asked to "get in the back".

On average, blacks are responsible for six times as much violent crime than whites in America. Shouldn't Rev. Lowery have asked the black man to "embrace what is right"?

On average, 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock and a majority grow up in fatherless homes. Shouldn't black fathers be asked to "stick around"?

I have learned from my personal experience in predominantly black movie theaters and neighborhoods, that most black people are much louder and more rowdy than most Asians. Shouldn't the black man asked "to be mellow" (especially in movie theaters).

During the past 50 years, affirmative action and racial quotas have insured that under-qualified minorities get ahead of more qualified white men in college admissions and employment opportunities. Black men, women and other minorities have been given an unfair advantage of "getting ahead man" in college enrollment and employment.

Today's civil rights leaders focus on disparities in "outcomes", between different "groups", rather than equal opportunities and responsibilities that all Americans share. I would like to work toward the day when civil rights leaders preach about the the virtues of individual responsibilities, consideration to your fellow man, the importance of the intact family and aspiring to live our lives according to the Christian principles that our great nation was founded upon.

Is The Earth On The Brink Of An Ice Age?

On the global warming front, I read an interesting article today from Pravda, of all places. Of course I do not place much credibility in that state run publication of Russia. But in recent years, our own NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times, Miami Sun Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle and most other newspapers across our country have been promoting a liberal democratic party agenda, rather than objectively reporting the news. The clearest examples of this is the coverage that they have been giving to AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming), the Obama campaign, Governor Palin, George Bush, the Iraq war and the economic downturn. I would put the credibility of Pravda on the same level as the aforementioned publications. But I digress.

This Pravda article made a compelling case for an upcoming global cooling cycle. Some of their ideas are very similar to the ideas that I wrote about on my blog, before I ever read about them anywhere else. When I read an article that comes to the same conclusions that I have arrived at by using reason, common sense and my personal experience, I know that I am on to something.

Here is an excerpt from my article entitled: "The Global Warming Myth Revisited":

Another thing that I discovered is that co2 is also dissolved in the oceans just like in soda pop. When the ocean temperature rises, co2 is released from the ocean into the atmosphere. This may explain why the records show that global temperature rise, always precedes the increase in co2 in the atmosphere. Articles that I have recently read reiterate these conclusions that I have come to on my own using reason, logic and common sense.

Here is an excerpt from Pravda's article entitled: "Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age"

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

If we do not even know if the climate is warming or cooling, how can we know what action is necessary to safeguard healthy living conditions for all of humanity?

It is a fact that colder temperatures would be far more harmful to humanity than warmer temperatures. Colder temperatures would result in less land that is suitable for farming, less land suitable for habitation, more deaths due to freezing temperatures and increased disease due to more frequent winter conditions.

Let's suppose that CO2 emissions are actually causing the Earth's climate to warm. This would have a positive effect on life on earth, if we were entering an "ice age".

Also, humanity's reliance on fossil fuels has enabled the world population to grow to over 6 billion. This population explosion was made possible because of the advances that a reliance on fossil fuels has brought about. These advances include: mechanized farming techniques, refrigeration, air, ground and sea transportation of food and other vital goods, home heating and air conditioning, the availability of speedy emergency services, the availability of modern medicine, the availability of fresh drinking water, the availability of water for irrigation, the availability of indoor plumbing, etc.

If we dramatically reduced or eliminated the use of fossil fuels before finding a suitable, safe and environmentally safer substitute, we would reduce the worlds limit to sustain human life, and billions would die unnecessarily.

This is why we should not rush into any global solutions "half-cocked". There may be unforeseen negative consequences.