[Sosfbay-discuss] BARACK OBAMA

Sat Feb 10 14:08:10 PST 2007

  Dear Green Friends, 

 I watched Sen. Barack Obama on C-Span today.

 I haven't said too much about him. I am sort of in the "wait and see" camp. Most of my wife's family still lives in Illinois and so, I think the first time I ever heard about him was from my brother-in-law, Martin Deppe, who told me about a bright young state senator from Southside Chicago that was starting to make a big splash. He gave a fiery anti-war speech at one of the first big demonstrations in Chicago before the war back in 2002 and his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2004 partly came out of that. 

 Santa Claus brought me his book The Audacity of Hope over the holidays. I've read most of it, but I haven't finished it, because frankly, it's a campaign book full of "on-the-one-hand" and "on-the-other-hand" stuff. 

 I've seen a lot of politicians. Obama is good. Make no mistake. He’s good.   He's young. He's good-looking. He's sharp. He can rap. He WILL inspire a new generation of activists. No doubt about it. There was a time (when I was still young and naive), when I would have signed up for this campaign right away. 

 Let's just say he represents the best... of mainstream... Democratic Party neoliberalism. Let me just say that with all the good and bad that this implies. Right in the prologue to his book -- page 10 -- he writes:

  I am a Democrat, after all; my views on most topics correspond more closely to the editorial pages of The New York Times than those of The Wall Street Journal. I am angry about politics that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity for all…    From there Barack goes into a little catechism of “I Believe” statements:    I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs – including my own – on nonbelievers. Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography; I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.    But that is not all that I am …      So far, so good. He’s a nice liberal.    Now comes the other shoe:     But that is not all that I am. I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers. I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identify, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.      People who know me well can guess which parts of this that Alex Walker doesn’t like.    “I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect…”    What “political correctness?” When are people going to drop this silly cliché that was funny for about fifteen minutes back in 1991?    “I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship…”    Why do “good liberals” always have to genuflect to the hegemony of corporate capitalism? When I read stuff like this (and I read it everyday), I realize that, philosophically, I’m still socialist and Green.    “I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers…”   Nice touch -- when both you and your wife are Harvard lawyers.    “I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture… our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP…”   Blame the victim! Blame for the victim for her terrible “Culture of Poverty.” 

  Remember, this section is about ways in which being a Democrat and being Black is “not all that I am.” In other words, this section is implicitly about how he is not about Democrat “liberal permissiveness” and the “black pathology” which "everybody" knows is about all you need to know about "being Black” in America.    He just said “I believe in the free market” but here he says “our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.” Let him tell that to the boys at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. This "breakdown" occurs all over the world wherever the “free market” religion takes hold. It is one of the central contradictions of capitalism (but alas, the fact that I even use a phrase like “contradictions of capitalism” shows how “smug, detached, and dogmatic” I am).     Last, but certainly not least, comes this:    “I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world… and revere the courage and competence of our military…”  
  Ah! The age-old myth of “American Exceptionalism.” When I was still young and naive (that is, before I was forty), I used to genuflect at this altar. As late as the 1991 Gulf War I was one of those suckers who insisted on displaying an American flag at all our antiwar events. When I ran for office, my original design for a campaign flyer included a little American flag in the corner. Thank goodness Carole Hanisch, my graphics expert, convinced me to drop that bullshit. The end result was much more attractive and effective. Today, I agree 100% with Howard Zinn, who recently wrote a powerful essay on this matter.  
    The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a hill.”  The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.  In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians. Here’s a description by William Bradford, an early settler, of Captain John Mason’s attack on a Pequot village.  . . .  Some liberals in this country, opposed to Bush, nevertheless are closer to his principles on foreign affairs than they want to acknowledge.  . . .  The major newspapers, television news shows, and radio talk shows appear not to know history, or prefer to forget it. There was an outpouring of praise for Bush’s second inaugural speech in the press, including the so-called liberal press (The Washington Post, The New York Times). The editorial writers eagerly embraced Bush’s words about spreading liberty in the world, as if they were ignorant of the history of such claims, as if the past two years’ worth of news from Iraq were meaningless. Only a couple of days before Bush uttered those words about spreading liberty in the world, The New York Times published a photo of a crouching, bleeding Iraqi girl. She was screaming. Her parents, taking her somewhere in their car, had just been shot to death by nervous American soldiers. . . .  The true heroes of our history are those Americans who refused to accept that we have a special claim to morality and the right to exert our force on the rest of the world. I think of William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist. On the masthead of his antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, were the words, “My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind.”   
    Dennis Kucinich is the best progressive (The Black Commentator has said Dennis is “the blackest” candidate), but Dennis probably cannot be nominated. 

  Edwards may be stronger on domestic policy. Edwards is sharp but Obama is sharper. Some naïve souls may think the white guy from North Carolina will do well Dixie like Carter and Bill Clinton. Carter and Clinton did what they did then. This is now. I agree 100% with Thomas Schaller who flatly says that it’s high time for Democrats to forget about the South because the Republican “own” the South today. 

  Finally, as I have already said publicly many times, Hillary Rodham Clinton, with her ethically-challenged Clintonesque wishy-washiness is a disaster.    In conclusion, Barack Obama is a good guy. He may be the best and the brightest that the Democratic Party has to offer.    I leave it to you to interpret my meaning.      Alex Walker  

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