Many African Americans were offended when Hillary Clinton told an interviewer in New Hampshire, "Martin Luther King's dream became a reality when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.""Many"? I doubt it. "Some say"? Ah, that old Fox News tactic.
Some say she seemed to suggest that it took a white politician to fulfill a black man's dream.
If you are dreaming about legislative change, and if the year is 1964, and if the legislators are white -- then yeah, it takes white politicians to fulfill a black man's dream. A bad situation, but that's the way things were.
"I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News. "That's something that has played out in the press. That's not my view."So now Obama, like Edwards, hopes to recast the problem as one of "Washington Insiders" vs. We The People. What BS!
But, he said, the comment was revealing about her political character. "I do think it was indicative of the perspective that she brings, which is that what happens in Washington is more important than what happens outside of Washington," he said.
He said he believes the quote betrays a belief on her part, "that the intricacies of the legislative process were somehow more significant than when ordinary people rise up and march and go to jail and fight for justice."
He called that a "fundamental difference" between them.
That argument would be a lot more convincing if the fellows making it were not running for president. Maybe they should stay home, where the real action supposedly is?
11 comments:
You used to be a compelling writer. Now you appear to be morphing into an angry man who is not making clear-headed arguments. You're losing me as a reader and that's a damn shame because I know you can do better. I suggest a vacation to clear your head...and then back to what you do best.
I don't doubt the "many" word's actual numbers, not with emails and blog commentaries in the fray. Besides, if one person is genuinely offended, science teaches us that another thousand persons would be equally offended if they heard the same thing in the same context. "Many" is an overstatement, though, since hardly anyone (out of a few hundred millions) gives a rat's rectum about "1964" or thereabouts, except for the geezer demographic.
Barry isn't young, but he's running against geezers. The mayor of Pittsburgh is young, nearly 11% younger than Tiger Woods and almost half Barry's age.
Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Biden, Dodd, and Kucinich are Eurocentricists (the ideology that believes there is such a 'thing' as 'the West', as in 'Western Civilization'). A lot of Eurocentrism is 'racist', a lot is guilty, a lot is guilt-ridden.
When the Soviet Union sent troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968 (anyone remember that summer?) my neighbor answered her daughter's question with "It's very difficult being a human".
Obama disillusioned me fairly early on with his false description of his health care program, that it allegedly 'covered everyone,' which was manifestly wrong. So he revealed himself as a typical spinning, if not lying, politician at that time.
However, both HRC and Johnny "John" Edwards (whom I actually favor among these three) are about the same, IMO, and so 'being a typical politician' isn't a criterion that distinguishes one from the other top tier candidates.
I think it is fairly obvious that the Clintons are doing their own Rove-work to try to attack BHO's credentials on early Iraq war opposition, using partial quotes, and etc., to misrepresent a consistent and principled early opposition as waffling.
But if one is going to oppose any of them for this reason, one is left with no one to support. They all have the sharp elbows out, and land their occasional low blows. Politics ain't beanbag, whatever that colorful expression means.
....sofla
You do understand that this "Hillary is Racist. Obama is angry" charade was manufactured by the higher ups in the media to divide the dems. You do get that don't you?
anon, there are times when "Blame the media" becomes not an argument, but a crutch. Jesse Jackson Jr. is Obama's co-chair. He's not Big Media.
Even realizing that I may be poking the hornet's nest here, I have to say . . . I just spent a couple hours digging through the CNN, MSNBC, ABC and CBS sites, and I still haven't found a report of anyone close to Obama calling Hillary's remark racist. (You imply that Jesse Jackson, Jr. said such; could you point me to the story?) The Hillary campaign had a few remarks suggesting that such charges were coming out of his campaign, but the news reports mostly boiled down to three days of both sides apologizing for insults that were never said.
Since you are so riled by Rovian tactics, Joe, I'd be interested in what you have to say about the reports that Hillary supporters in Nevada are suing to move caucuses away from the Las Vegas strip--and, thus, the culinary workers they fear will deliver delegates to Obama.
"(You imply that Jesse Jackson, Jr. said such; could you point me to the story?)"
I caught an interview on one of the cable news channels -- I think CNN. He was scoring the Clintons for what he perceived as a "pattern" of racist remarks.
The tactic appears to be working. Blacks are deserting Hillary in droves. I've no problem with that, if support for her weakens over substantive policy issues. But the current flap was over bullshit.
I don't think Hillary will win Nevada, regardless of where the caucuses are held. I could be wrong, though.
Ahh, well, if that is indeed the case, then I have to agree that's pretty unfair to her. I don't think she has a great record in other ways, but she's never been a racist.
I'll have to adjust the order in which I don't care about the candidates.
Hillary's Real MLK Problem
by BARBARA EHRENREICH
[posted online on January 15, 2008]
At first I took it as another, yawn, white rip-off of black culture and creativity: the Rolling Stones appropriating the Bo Diddley beat, Bo Derek sporting corn rows, and now Hillary giving Lyndon Baines Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you had to give this honor to a white guy, LBJ was an odd choice, since he'd spent the 1964 Democratic convention scheming to prevent the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party from taking any Dixiecrat seats. By Clinton's standards, maybe Richard Nixon should be credited with the legalization of abortion in 1972.
But Clinton's LBJ remark reveals something more worrisome than racial tone-deafness--a theory of social change that's as elitist as it is inaccurate. Black civil rights weren't won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about. Some were students and pastors; many were dirt-poor farmers and urban workers. No one has ever attempted to list all their names.
There's a problem too, of course, with the conventional abbreviation of the Civil Rights Movement into two names--Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. What about Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's delegation to the 19464 convention? What about Ella Baker, Fred Hampton, Stokely Carmichael and hundreds of other leaders? The Great Person theory of history may simplify textbook-writing, but leaves us with no clue as to how change actually happens.
Women's rights, for example, weren't brokered by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem over tea. As Steinem would be the first to acknowledge, the feminist movement of the '70s took root around kitchen tables and coffee tables, ignited by hundreds of thousands of now-anonymous women who were sick of being called "honey" at work and excluded from "men's" jobs. Media stars like Friedan and Steinem did a brilliant job of proselytizing, but it took an army of unsung heroines to stage the protests, organize the conferences, hand out the fliers and spread the word to their neighbors and co-workers.
"Change" is this year's Democratic battle cry, but if you don't know how it happens, you're not likely to make it happen yourself. A case in point is Clinton's 1993 "health reform" plan. She didn't do any "listening tour" for that, no televised town meetings with heart-rending grassroots testimonies. Instead, she gathered up a cadre of wonks for months of closed-door meetings, some so secretive that the participants themselves were barred from bringing in pencils or pens. According to David Corn of The Nation, when Clinton was told that 70 percent of Americans polled favored a single-payer system at the time, she responded sarcastically with, "Now tell me something interesting."
She could have gone about things differently, in a way that wouldn't have left 47 million Americans uninsured today. She could have started by realizing that no real change would come about without a mobilization of the ordinary people who wanted it. Instead of sequestering herself with economists and business consultants, she might have met with representatives of nurses' organizations, doctors' groups, health workers' unions, and patient advocates. Then she could have gone to the public and said: I'm working for a major change in the way we do things and it's going to run into heavy resistance, so I'll need your support in every possible way.
But she did it her way, and ended up with a 1,300-page plan that no one, on either side of the aisle, liked or could even comprehend--proving that historical change isn't made by the smartest girl in the room, even if she shares a bed with the President. Similarly, she ignored the anti-war movement of this decade and alienated untold numbers of Democratic voters, feminists included.
I'd like to think that Obama, with his community organizing experience and insistence on firing people up, gets it a little better. But whoever is elected President this year, there won't be any real change in a progressive direction without a mass social movement to bring it about--either by holding the president accountable or by holding his or her feet to the fire. And a mass social movement doesn't begin at the top. It begins right now, with you.
anon 742
That's it in a nut shell and you can apply that to just about any issue regarding the candidates.
America stands at the threshold of a monumental and historical moment. The opportunity to make great strides is before us.
I have a really difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that so many do not "get" Obama. Have we become so cynical -- after seven excruciating years of Bush & Cheney -- that we are blinded by it?
Do some research on Obama. His record has been distorted by opponents. Negative talking points and fabrications lobbed against Obama have been ruthless. If you listen to what Obama says, read transcripts, interviews, the bills he has passed, et al rather than the nonsense being spread about him, then it becomes clear he is who he says he is.
Too many people accept things without question -- myself included. The media, emails, comments posted at different sites are so off the wall that it makes it more confusing to sort thru the BS same with all the candidates.
One piece of unsolicited advice: look up full quotes because the media takes partial quotes and/or quotes out of context to completely alter the original meaning. I learned that when I worked on General Clark's campaign in 2004.
Why Obama matters and what makes him so appealing it is important to know more about Obama's background. He has the "people's" interests in mind.
Obama reaches across party lines. That is a critically important attribute, because the scale of changes that must be made to correct America's course cannot be accomplished with a majority of 50 percent plus one.
"He understands the need for building unity from the bottom up, the need to unite people around a civic vision that weds local and national power.
"As much as community organising taught Obama about transformational politics, it also rubbed him the wrong way. Especially the emphasis on self-interest and conflict. Obama saw the limits in that model of political organising and found himself desiring to speak a language of hope and unity as much as conflict and power. He also recognised the parochialism of local activism and the need to enter national politics. After all, you can't get people healthcare by doing neighbourhood organising. You can't stop a protracted war by knocking on people's doors. You can't solve problems like global warming by organising solely at the local level. Obama's decision to enter politics - while trying to preserve the lessons community organising taught him - goes to the core of his identity. It's what makes him who he is today. And I think it's that element that explains his appeal. Unlike the phony populism all politicians seem to embrace today, Obama's biography suggests that he recognises the ability of people to organise at the local level for change while also seeing the need for larger power structures to help them in that pursuit."
Making wise decisions based on sound judgment & having life-experience outside of Washington are considerably more important because it opens the mind to fresh ideas for finding new ways to operate in the world.
So if you want change which candidate is more likely to bring change: a candidate entrenched in the Washington political establishment or the one whose thinking is still outside the box.
Obama has a phenomenal mind. He has the intelligence and judgment needed for this job.
Everyone is clamouring for change, but unless we are willing to put our money where our mouth is, we'll end-up with politics as usual. Thus blind support for a candidate over the other because he or she is more "electable" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you are not willing to vote your conscience, why then would anyone else? Don't let cynicism get in the way.
Obama's background and experiences prepared him for this moment. With a deep understanding of the human psyche and a grasp of world events and how the two are inseparable indicates Obama is uniquely qualified to become the next president.
Too often we (myself included) fail to recognize, sometimes small - sometimes phenomenal, opportunities and later regret it. As a nation, let's not let this one slip by.
I think most people understand that this moment is too, too important to watch it slip away!
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